


There's No Need To Be Heartless When You're Calling All The Shots

by inverts



Series: At The Bottom Of A Wishing Well Was A Secret That We Dare Not Speak Out Loud [9]
Category: Undertale (Video Game)
Genre: AU, Ableism, Codependency, Compartmentalizing, Dissociation, Fighting, Implied/Referenced Child Abuse, Implied/Referenced Self-Harm, Multi, POV Second Person, Pre-Slash, Species Swap, Strained Relationships, Suicide Attempt, Unhealthy Coping Mechanisms, Unhealthy Relationships, backsliding, graphic depictions of aftermath of violence
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2016-12-04
Updated: 2017-01-27
Packaged: 2018-09-06 08:22:24
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence
Chapters: 4
Words: 63,840
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/8742232
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/inverts/pseuds/inverts
Summary: The human Asriel Dreemurr fell into Mt. Ebott, where he was found by the monster children Frisk and Chara.They planned to steal his soul to break the barrier and resume the war against humans. They tried to kill him, and each other. But in the end, nobody needed to die. The barrier was broken, and Asriel walked into the sunlight alongside Chara and Frisk.That should have been the happy ending.Everyone lived.But, that doesn’t mean they weren’t badly hurt.This is a story about relationships.It’s about forgiveness, responsibility, accountability, and learning to make better choices.It’s even, somewhat, about politics.And it’s also, maybe, a tiny bit, about interspecies romance.Good luck, Asriel Dreemurr. You’re going to need it.





	1. One Step Forward,

**Author's Note:**

> On the tags on this fic:
> 
> you'll notice there are now relationship tags! This AU no longer qualifies as gen! However, everyone is still fumbling through their feelings, so even though I've tagged for some romance, nobody's going to be doing anything more than hugging, and having intense dokis.  
> The endgame of this AU is Frisk/Chara/Asriel, but in this installment (at least as of the first chapter being completed), the Asriel/Chara portion is getting more development than the trio as a whole. I may adjust these tags as we proceed.  
> Hence, the story is tagged 'pre-slash' for these relationships.
> 
> there are also some content tags to take note of! While some of this content does not take place in chapter one, I decided to tag for it anyway. I've realized that my writing sometimes makes people... anxious! So I want people to know from the get go what this installment of this series is going to contain. It's me writing this, so we'll be working toward a happy ending, but, well. Until then, welcome to suffertown. 
> 
> TL;DR there is going to be **self-harm** and **attempted suicide** , not in the first chapter, but at a point in the story, and if that is content that you can't read or need warning for, here it is.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I used to have a destination—[found out it’s only just a trick of the light.](https://lenversverlan.tumblr.com/post/153923642449/fluid-ounces-paperweight-machines)

You wake up.

It takes you a moment to realize you’re not actually screaming like you were in your dream, but your breath is fast and loud, and your skin is chilled with sweat under your blankets. You lie still, shivering, and blink up at your bedroom ceiling. The lights are off and the curtains drawn, but enough sunlight passes through the hanging fabric that it’s clearly still daytime. You’re in your pajamas—the soft purple and black plaid ones that Mom and Dad got for you this year because you outgrew the old green and yellow ones—and you’re comfy and tucked in under your thick, soft comforter. 

Already, the fear of your nightmare is fading away, as the details you absorb from your surroundings overwrite and replace the terrors of your sleeping mind. You’re more than happy to embrace the safe comfort of your reality and abandon the vague impressions of the nightmare that still linger. You couldn’t run, in your dream—you’d fallen to your hands and knees and all you could do was drag yourself, barely even crawling, and you hadn’t been fast enough to escape the blade that Frisk brought down on your soul—

And you woke up, and it was just a dream.

Well.

_ Some_ of it was just a dream.

“Are you okay?”

Your entire body jerks, trying to throw off the blankets, and naturally your legs get tangled and you spend several seconds trying to kick your way free of the bedding. When you finally manage to throw yourself out of bed and onto your feet, Chara is still waiting patiently, standing at the door to your room. Their feet are in the hallway, not over the threshold, but they lean in to look around, holding onto the doorframe for balance. 

You try to slow your breathing down. In the doorway of your room, framed by plain white walls with your bookshelves on one side and your desk on the other, Chara’s fantastical appearance is completely out of place. You try to reconcile the sight of the boss monster—impossible, unbelievable, claws and fangs and horns and fur and bright, bright eyes—with their surroundings, your completely mundane and unremarkable house, and they examine your room in return. They crane their head, taking in every inch—your closet, open, messy; giant posters of soaring dragons above your bed; your backpack, spilling out binders and a glittering, rainbow pencil case. Above your desk, a bulletin board is fixed to the wall, and pinned to it are several old drawings of your coolest original character. You’ve always wanted to write a whole series of books about the Absolute God of Hyperdeath, but you haven’t made any new drawings of him lately. You feel your ears and your nose heating up as Chara’s gaze heads in that direction, and you wiggle your toes in your socks.

Your parents must have put you in your pajamas. Your socks have been changed, too. But Chara’s still wearing their torn up green tunic. The reddish-brown slash on their left cheek, angled the same direction as the three rips in their top, stands out from the rest of their soft, creamy white fur. You wonder if the different colouration is permanent, if Frisk’s left them with a scar that they’ll wear for the rest of their life. 

“H… Howdy,” you mumble. Your eyes dart to your bedside table to see if your cell phone is there, and then you remember your fall into the underground. Your hands fidget with the bottom hem of your flannel pajama shirt, as you ask, “What time is it?”

Chara shrugs. “My phone was in my other pants,” they say. The answer is so absurdly  _ normal_, you can’t help but laugh. You bring a hand up to hide your grin as you chuckle, but Chara only smiles back at you. 

“Oh, Chara, is he awake?” comes your mom’s voice, and then she’s at the doorway behind them. They duck around her so that she’s not leaning over them as she looks into your room. She gives them a little smile, and then she turns to look at you.

You feel your nose tingle and your lip wobble; silently, you plod across the room and press your face into her side as you wrap your arms around her. Her gentle hands come to run her fingers through your hair and rub soothing circles on your back. “My little prince,” she says, and your ears heat up, but when you sneak a glance at Chara, there’s no reaction. You hide your face once more in Mom’s shirt, and you bite the inside of your cheek. 

You were only gone for a day. Less, even. You’re back home now, and everything’s fine. There’s absolutely no reason for you to cling to your mom like some kind of baby.

She pets your head again, the short tufts of hair in the back fluffing up as her hand passes over them, and you push your face a little further into her shirt. 

“Good morning, my darling,” she says. “Would you like breakfast?”

The moment the words leave her mouth, you can smell it—the maple syrup and butter scent thick in the air even up here on the second floor, even with your face buried in your mom’s shirt. You lift your head and reluctantly let her go. 

She leads you and Chara both downstairs to the kitchen, holding hands with you both. Normally you’d be embarrassed, but today.… To her other side, Chara doesn’t seem to mind in the slightest.

When you reach the kitchen, Frisk is already seated at the table, on the side closest to the wall. They’ve pulled their legs up, wrapping their arms around them; their eyes, nearly shut, peek at you over their knees. Like Chara, they’re still in that same beat up set of clothing Mettaton gave them, prior to their brave ‘rescue.’ The gash on their right cheek, too, has closed up. The brown fur growing in is a shade darker than the mark left on Chara’s face.

Chara gingerly sits in the chair furthest from Frisk, on the opposite side of the table, as Mom goes to the counter where a bowl of batter and the waffle iron are already set up. After a moment’s hesitation, you start to move to the seat next to Chara.

“Asriel, where are your manners?” Mom asks. “Are you not going to offer our guests something to drink?”

Chara covers their mouth, though they can’t entirely restrain the burst of giggles that spill out. You frown at them, but the cruel smirk you’re expecting isn’t there. Instead their eyes have gone wide, and their grin is vacant. 

“Um,” you stammer. “Do you want anything?”

Chara calms their breathing as you speak; by the time you’re done, they’re able to answer. “Water would be nice,” they say, still smiling a little too large, and you remember.

It would probably be in bad taste to tell them that you’re not planning to try to kill them once they’re done with their water. And you’d rather not have Mom ask just what you mean by that.

You try to put the memory of Chara leading you through their castle home out of your mind, as you turn to the other monster at the table. “Frisk?” you ask.

“Same,” they mumble.

Frisk doesn’t look at you when you set the cup of water in front of them. You think you hear a muffled, “Thanks,” murmured into their knees, but they don’t reach for the drink, or move at all otherwise. You go around the table to give Chara theirs, and then you sit—or try to, but Mom reminds you to wash your hands first. That done, you get yourself a glass of orange juice, and finally take a seat.

The kitchen table (technically the dining room table, but there’s not actually a wall separating the dining room from the kitchen proper, just a difference in flooring, so you don’t really care) is larger than just you, Mom, and Dad really need, but it’s good when Dad’s parents come to visit, or when Mom or Dad has guests over for dinner. Sitting next to Chara leaves an empty spot between you and Frisk; if either of them notice or think anything of your choice, they don’t react. 

Chara’s holding on to the edge of the table, tapping their claws on the tablecloth in a simple rhythm. They flash you a small smile when you sit, before staring at their place setting and silverware as though it’s the most interesting thing they’ve seen in weeks. They haven’t actually touched their water. (Neither has Frisk.) 

Should you try to make conversation while you wait for Mom to finish preparing breakfast? Chara’s shoulders are tense, and their fingers which aren’t tapping on the table grip it tightly. When you look at Frisk, they bow their head so their entire face is pressed against their knees, hidden and withdrawn. 

Maybe you should offer to help Mom with breakfast, instead.

“We called your school to say you were staying home today,” Mom says, thankfully giving you something else to focus on. You look up to see her easing a waffle onto a plate—next to her, the microwave display reads 11:32. It’s somewhat of a surprise to discover you haven’t slept the entire day away, though it does explain why you still feel a little groggy, why your mind seems to require a little more time to process what you’re seeing and hearing. “Your father had to cancel several meetings this morning,” she continues, as she brings two plates over, sliding them in front of Chara and Frisk. You absolutely do not pout—of course guests get served first. “We were able to use your disappearance as an excuse, but that won’t hold water for long.”

“I’m sorry,” you mumble. 

“Asriel,” Mom says, returning to the counter to get two more plates, “You should certainly apologize for doing something so foolish as climbing Mt. Ebott on a dare. However.” She sets your plate in front of you, and slides into the seat between you and Frisk. You have to crack a small smile at the sight of the waffle on your plate—it’s big enough to take up the entire dish, topped with a picturesque square of melting butter, and the waffle iron’s imprint isn’t the standard criss-cross of little squares, but instead makes a pattern of hearts around a star in the center. Mom rests her hand on top of yours, and for all that you’re not a little kid anymore, her hands are still big enough to completely eclipse your own. “From all accounts I have heard, you were very brave, and you did a great thing. I am proud of you.”

Mom’s smile is warm, and her fingers are gentle when they give yours a squeeze. 

“You know what happened?” you ask, darting another glance toward Chara and Frisk. Neither boss monster has started to eat yet, though Frisk has raised their head enough to direct their blank stare to their waffle. Chara is holding their fork and knife, and when they notice you looking at them, they try to quickly pretend they weren’t watching you. You can't imagine either of them describing anything you did as ‘brave,’ so someone else must have told your mom. Definitely not Undyne, so maybe Dr. Alphys? 

Mom gives your hand another little squeeze and then ruffles your hair. “I would still like to hear from you,” she says. “But first, I think we could all use a good meal, before we begin to discuss such topics.”

You're not going to argue with something that gives you the chance to postpone telling Mom what happened—and besides, you haven't had a real meal since lunch yesterday. You and your mom each quietly say your dua, and then you reach for the bottle of maple syrup in the middle of the table. You can feel Chara’s eyes on you as you liberally soak your waffle; when you hear Mom clear her throat, you sheepishly pass the bottle on to Chara. They follow your example, and Mom doesn’t chide  _ them, _ even though you’re pretty sure that by the time they pass the bottle across table to Frisk, their waffle’s even more submerged than yours is. Guests, you remind yourself, you have to treat your guests well. You cut off a piece and shove it in your mouth, and it’s hard to stay grumpy while eating a fresh, warm waffle, even if some of the syrup does dribble down your chin. 

Chara gingerly cuts a piece of their own and lifts it up on their fork, regarding it warily. Gobs of syrup drop back down onto their plate as they stare at it, and you recall a remark about human food being different from monster food. They carefully bite the waffle off their fork, and the moment their lips close over it, their eyes go wide. 

“It’s sweet!” they blurt, mouth still full, and Mom chides them to chew with their mouth closed. They’re already cutting their next piece, though you see them pause when they swallow. “Weird,” they remark, setting their fork down to pat at their throat and chest. “Human food is weird.”

“It’s still good, though, right?” you ask. You don’t know why you care about the answer. Of course it’s good. If Chara can’t appreciate a hot waffle covered in syrup, that’s their loss.

They nod, grinning around their next forkful, and you smile back.

“Slow down,” your mom is telling Frisk, who’s already nearly finished demolishing their meal. “You’ll hardly even taste it that way!” Frisk’s shoulders slump, but their jaw does seem to move a little slower as they chew. They still finish well before you, however. As they did with Papyrus’s spaghetti, Frisk cleans their empty plate with their tongue, appearing not to notice your mom’s disapproving look. Chara is glaring at them as well, though with the way their eyes keep darting to their own plate, empty but for smears of syrup that the waffle didn’t quite absorb, you kind of get the idea they wish they were that shameless, too. 

There’s amber syrup sticking to the fur below Frisk’s nose for a brief moment when they put their plate down. It quickly disappears under their tongue, and you try not to stare. 

Funny, how they can have horns and claws and soft white fur, but it’s little gestures like that which remind you they’re not human.

Mom has you take everyone’s empty plates to the sink. You’re pretty sure you’re going to be the one who has to wash them all later, too. When you come back to the table, she has you sit once more between her and Chara; you scoot your chair a little closer to her so she can wrap an arm around you, and you lean on her. It’s only after you’ve settled against her that you worry that you’re being insensitive—is this just flaunting what you have that Chara and Frisk don’t? But you can’t pull away  _ now_. 

Frisk, at least, isn’t looking at you; they’ve once more curled up in their chair. From this vantage point, you can see how their little toes hang out over the edge of the seat. Chara’s smiling at you in a way that you recognize as carefully constructed and meaningless, the equivalent of Frisk’s neutral mask. 

“Asgore should be back soon,” Mom says, and you put aside your worries for now, so you can listen to her. She explains to you, “He went with Miss Undyne and Dr. Alphys to meet with other monsters who will help us all figure out our options.” 

“Options?” you ask, looking up at her.

Mom fluffs up the short hair on the back of your head as she elaborates. “Your father and I were very shocked to learn that another race has been living so close to us for so long, hidden under Mt. Ebott. Imagine how difficult it will be for people who are unable to meet monsters in person to believe this is true?” She sighs, then, and adds, “I expect, also, that many people will be afraid, no matter how well we do this.”

“It was because humans were afraid that the war started,” Chara remarks, folding their hands on their lap, smiling serenely. “I do not wish to start another.”

“Don’t wanna fight anymore,” Frisk mumbles into their knees. “Wanna share the surface with humans.”

You look from one monster to the other, and bite the inside of your cheek. Chara’s gaze is directed to your mom and not you; Frisk isn’t looking at anyone, except maybe Chara. Mom’s hand gives your shoulder a squeeze as she pulls you a little closer, and you realize you were shivering. 

You’re glad to hear Chara and Frisk say they don’t want a war. You  _ are_. So, why….?

“Asgore and I will do all that we can to help you and your people,” your mom says. It’s reassurance, but it’s promise, too; her voice is strong, and you have no trouble believing that she and Dad can make everything work. “But, before he returns with Miss Undyne and Dr. Alphys, would you like to know what I think you will need to do?”

Chara nods, and Frisk turns their head just enough to show that they’re listening, though you can’t honestly say that they’re looking at your mom. “We would welcome your advice,” Chara says, and you almost wince at their voice. It’s not the same as the stiff, pained way they spoke to Undyne when they told her they didn’t want her tutelage, but it’s clear to you, at least, that the words are reluctantly spoken. 

“When you are in charge of other people, no matter how many or how few,” Mom says, and you straighten without even thinking about it. You see Chara do the same, their forced smile dropping for an attentive expression, and Frisk raises their head, alert. “You cannot lead them if you are divided. You must present a unified front to your people.” Frisk’s shoulders hunch, and you see Chara’s hands tighten their grip on each other. “Before anything can be done, you must decide who will lead your people.”

“Of course,” Chara laughs, breathy, mouth once again stretching in a pained grin. “Naturally.” Frisk’s claws pull at their sleeves, and you can see them bite their lip, their fangs digging in.

“Mom doesn’t mean you have to fight over it!” you interject quickly. 

“Of course not,” Mom agrees. Chara lets their smile fall, and Frisk’s fingers loosen before they can put new tears in their top. “I would never suggest such a thing,” she continues. “But from what I have been told, you are currently without a leader. There is no king and queen to guide you, as you’d expected there would be, and now your people will be looking to you to lead them instead. But you are still children; it is unreasonable to expect either of you to handle such a responsibility.” 

Chara shakes their head, but it’s Frisk who voices their objection first. “Nobody else,” they say, uncurling so that they sit straight in their chair. They set their hands flat on the table, splaying their fingers out—four digits, not five like yours. You’d known that, but the reminder again strikes you, that they and Chara are so much like you, but so different, too. “Has to be one of us.”

“There is nobody else I would entrust this to,” Chara agrees, glancing quickly at Frisk before they turn their stare to your mom again. “Neither of us will sit by and let someone else rule our kingdom.”

“You do not have to,” Mom says, and Chara deflates the slightest increment. “There are other options. You might share the throne, but choose to appoint a regent until you reach adulthood, or assemble a council of several monsters.” She’s not at all put off by Chara’s hard stare. In front of your mom, their magic and fangs and horns mean nothing; she talks to them in the same tone she uses with you when she expects to be listened to. Frisk and Chara might be royalty, they might be monsters, and they might have tried to kill each other, but they’re still kids like you. They listen. “Whatever you choose,” she says, “once you have committed to that path, you cannot let your people see you question it. You must keep your doubts private, and you  _ must work together. _ If you do not…”

Frisk reaches up to tug at their ear. Their claws disappear in the messy tufts of fur at the end. 

Chara closes their eyes and breathes slowly. “If we do not stand together,” they echo, and their eyes open again. Unfocused, they stare past you. “Everything will fall apart.” You’re not surprised to see their smile slowly unfold across their face once more. “I understand,” they say. 

You don’t doubt for a moment that they do.

  
  
  


You do wind up having to do the dishes, as predicted. After that, Mom tells you to take a shower and get dressed, and you leave Frisk and Chara in the living room. ‘So they have some time alone to think things over,’ according to Mom. Frisk curls themself up in Mom’s reading chair, while Chara takes the corner of the couch furthest away from them. You hesitate for a moment before going upstairs, but what are you stalling for? It’s no surprise that Chara doesn’t want to be any closer to Frisk than they have to. There’s nothing you can say to change that—you’re not even sure you  _ should _ try to say something about it. After all, you didn’t want to sit next to Frisk at breakfast, either.

Did they talk to each other, while you slept? Or did they nap, too?

You try to remind yourself that it’s not your problem, but the image of them at opposite ends of the room still plagues you even after your shower, as you look through your closet for something to wear. 

You find yourself flipping through your shirts, looking for the coolest ones. It’s not like you’re going to school today, so you can wear anything you want—except everyone’s going to be talking about politics all day, and you’re probably going to get dragged into it, so Mom will probably make you get changed if you come downstairs wearing one of your video game t-shirts. It’s not like the monsters will care, but you already know that’s not an argument Mom will listen to. Finally you grab a green button-down—it’s got a pattern with distressed yellow diamonds and fleur-de-lits coming down one shoulder, so even though it’s kinda preppy, it’s still cool.

When you’re pulling on your sneakers, you hear the sound of a car pulling up outside. You stumble to your bedroom window and tug the curtain aside, and there’s Dad’s van turning in the driveway. Your shoes aren’t tied, but you run out your room and down the stairs anyway, rushing to get to the garage door. Mom must hear you tromping down the stairs, because she calls out a warning to slow down and be careful.

You’ve barely opened your mouth to yell back an, “Okay, Mom,” before you step on your own shoelaces and trip down the last few stairs. Your words spike up into a yelp as you tumble, your eyes closing automatically as you brace yourself for a painful landing. 

You hear the thump of your body hitting the floor before you feel it, knocking the breath out of you. As your brain catches up to what’s happened, aches settle in your chest and chin from the painful impact, but you’ve managed to avoid hitting the floor with your face first and giving yourself  _ another _ bloody nose, at least. Though actually, the floor under you doesn’t really feel like the hardwood you were expecting. You groan unhappily and start to push yourself up, opening your eyes as you get your arms under you.

Warm, and with some give, that’s definitely not the floor under your hand. The sight that meets your eyes isn’t brown polished wood, but soft, white fur. Frisk grunts, and your eyes go wide. You practically throw yourself off them, scrabbling backward, and they make another unhappy noise as they roll over onto their side. Their eyes, always practically shut, are now squinched up tight, and their mouth is pinched up.

“Oh gosh, I’m sorry, are you okay?” you babble, and they slowly pick themself up to sit on the floor. As their face smoothes out, they raise one hand and give you a thumbs up. You breathe out—hopefully that means they haven’t broken anything.

It’s weird, though—you’d thought they were still in the living room. Certainly you hadn’t seen them at the foot of the stairs before you’d fallen. You look past them, toward the living room, and you jump; Chara’s standing in the hall, watching you intently. They have one hand on the wall, and you can see the tension in their splayed fingers. You return their stare, helpless to look away now that your eyes have met.

Your mom appears behind them, then, and they drop your gaze immediately; as they did earlier this morning, they duck away so that she’s not standing over them. “Asriel! What happened?” she asks, taking in the scene. You scramble quickly to your feet and go to help Frisk up, hoping Mom won’t notice your shoelaces. 

Frisk stares at your hand, perplexion evident in the way their mouth drops the slightest bit open. They tilt their head up to (presumably) look at you, and you give them a nervous smile. They’re slow to put their hand in yours, and once they do, you’re not sure how much help you actually are in pulling them up, because they have to grab the stair rail in their other hand before they can get to their feet. As soon as they’re standing, they slip their fingers free, backing away a step.

Their clear reluctance to touch you or be near you—well, you’re fine with that! They tried to kill you and Chara. You don’t want to be any closer to them than you have to, either.

“Asriel,” your mom says, and you wince. You turn to see Mom’s disappointed frown. “Why aren’t your shoes tied?”

“Sorry,” you mumble, dropping to one knee. 

“You could have been hurt,” she chides. You know that she’s grateful you weren’t, but it still grates. 

You’re still working on the second double knot when you hear the door to the garage open, and voices spill into the house, your dad’s deep tones standing out as he welcomes visitors. You bolt up and run to greet him, but you stumble to a halt when you see the monsters following him into the house.

“H-Hello again, Asriel!” Alphys says, giving you a small wave. Behind her is Undyne, which shouldn’t surprise you. You  _ are _ somewhat shocked to see Gerson plodding in after her, followed by Papyrus, and your surprise only grows to see Mettaton roll in after. 

“Greetings,” Mom says, coming to stand next to you. “I am Toriel. Welcome to our home.”

If Mom’s phased by the sheer variety of monsters who have just walked in, she doesn’t show it at all. She and Dad lead them all to the living room, and you wind up having to run and grab chairs from the kitchen so there’s enough room for everyone to sit. This time, Mom doesn’t have to prompt you out loud to offer everyone drinks, though she does have to give you a significant look before you remember your manners. 

When you come back to the living room, you almost drop the cups of water you’re holding at the sight of Sans sitting casually on the sofa. You definitely did  _ not _ see him in the group of monsters that came in with Dad. He only grins when you give him a suspicious look, and you frown in return. He might be one of the monsters that Alphys said knew what was really going on, but he sure didn’t do anything useful with that knowledge. What’s he even doing here?

The other monsters have, for the most part, made themselves comfortable, as they continue a discussion that probably started in the van while Dad drove everyone from the mountain. Next to Sans on the sofa, Papyrus is grinning as he looks around your living room. At first, you don’t think he’s listening to anyone, but then he turns to reply to a question your dad’s asked without missing a beat. On Papyrus’s other side, Gerson leisurely leans back into the cushions, but his expression is keen as he follows the thread of the conversation. Undyne and Alphys are sitting in kitchen chairs next to each other. Undyne is frowning, her arms crossed; Alphys seems to be trying to placate her, but she’s also biting at her lip and wringing her hands, too anxious to really calm the guardswoman. Mom and Dad, too, have taken seats in the wooden kitchen chairs, leaving their own preferred recliners to your guests. Frisk has wound up in Mom’s comfy armchair again, and they’re so small in the big, plush chair; next to them, Chara’s sat in Dad’s recliner, which is much to large for them, and they’re trying (and failing) not to sink into the cushions. Neither of them looks comfortable as they listen to the conversation that’s ongoing around them, Chara with a strained smile and Frisk tugging at their ear. You sit yourself on one of the kitchen chairs next to Mom, and you try to focus on what’s being said. 

“It may sound strange,” Dad is replying to someone, “but there are often hoaxes where people claim to have seen—well, monsters, of a sort. There is an entire city in New Mexico with a reputation for sightings of aliens. It’s become something of a joke.” You know what he means—you’d visited Roswell, once, a long time ago. Dad had bought you a shirt with a picture of a big-eyed grey alien saying, ‘Howdy!’ You’d worn it until you’d outgrown it, and even then, you’d been reluctant to get rid of it. He goes on, “It’s very likely that any initial announcement will be met with disbelief. We’ll have to account for delay of having to convince people this is not some farce to put Ebott back on the map.”

“Why not get someone else to handle that for us?” Mettaton asks. He’s not seated, somehow easily balanced on his single wheel, as steady as anyone standing on two legs. “PR is most effective when it’s not paid advertisements, after all.”

“Please, explain,” Mom requests.

Mettaton spreads his arms. “I’m sure you’ve seen this technique before,” he says. “Stage a ‘leak.’ Make us into a secret that you don’t want discovered, while slipping controlled pieces of information to the public. Let them convince themselves, until they demand full disclosure.”

Papyrus gasps, shooting straight up from his seat on the couch. “Like you did with  _ Guns and Robots 4: The Ghost in the Machine_!” he exclaims, bouncing from foot to foot in excitement. “Everyone on the Undernet was passing around the leaked footage, but! I knew all along! It was no accident! You leaked the footage yourself!”

“Guilty as charged,” Mettaton all but purrs, bowing with a flourish. The motion of his arm as he gestures is smooth, the limb well articulated, as opposed to the bow itself, a stiff and jerky bend where his single leg meets his rectangle body. “The release of that film was one of the most hotly anticipated! On opening weekend, it outsold all of my previous cinematic masterpieces!”

Sans puts a hand on Papyrus’s elbow to remind him to sit back down, and Dad clears his throat, trying to get things back on track. “That’s not a bad idea,” he says, glancing to Mom. She nods, and he smiles, more confident as he continues, “It has the advantage of giving us a little more time to work out things such as currency exchanges and living arrangements. We can also begin to introduce you to the City Council members, and the State Governor…”

Undyne stands up abruptly, and Alphys makes a startled noise that’s not quite loud enough to be a yelp. She quietly urges Undyne to sit back down, but to no avail, as Undyne narrows her eye at your dad and points at him. “Who said you get to decide all this?” she demands. “You think you can just tell us what to do?” She drops her hand to her hip, her posture aggressive and challenging as she glares your dad down. 

“Not at all,” Dad says mildly, spreading his hands in an open and placating gesture. He’s got his palms up—it’s one of those body language things that Mom’s told you is purposeful, to make the other person feel in control, or unthreatened. You wonder if Undyne knows what your dad’s doing. “As the mayor of this city, I am in a unique position to help you. It is my responsibility to do all I can to make your return to the surface a smooth and easy process, but even if it were not, I would want to help. So I will suggest the options I think will best serve you, but of course the final decision rests with you.”

You think you can hear Undyne’s teeth grinding against each other, and for once, you can sympathize with her. There’s not a trace of guile in Dad’s smile—he means every word, and that’s what stings the most, when you want to disagree with him, but you realize that not only is he right, he wants to help you. 

She crosses her arms once more and looks to the side, still scowling. “As long as you get that!” she says, sitting heavily back down. 

“Of course,” Dad nods, and then easily picks the conversation back up. Frisk is characteristically silent, but Chara, too, has little to say as the other monsters discuss future plans. You listen to the various suggestions, but any time you think of something to add, Dad’s already saying it. 

Mom’s fingers at your elbow pull your attention away. Without a word, she inclines her head toward the hallway; when she rises, you follow her. The two of you retreat to the little study that serves as her and Dad’s office, and she shuts the door behind you. Everyone’s voices become little more than indistinct murmurs, and she turns to you with a fond smile. You shift your weight from foot to foot.

“Your father seems to have things well in hand,” she says. “I think that we can afford to leave them, for the moment.” She sits down in the rolling chair in front of her desk, and you gingerly take Dad’s seat. From the height he’s set the chair, your legs dangle, the toes of your shoes barely touching the floor. You’re so tired of being such a runt—Mom tells you that you just haven’t hit your growth spurt yet, but you’re practically a teenager already. Are you  _ ever _ going to get any taller?

Mom’s looking at you expectantly, and your hands grip the edge of the chair seat. “Am I in trouble?” you ask.

“I did not pull you aside to punish you,” Mom says, which isn’t exactly what you asked, but does tell you part of what you wanted to know. “But I have spoken to other people—your classmates, your teachers, Chara, and Frisk—and now I would like to ask you what I have asked them.”

Yup. You’re in deep trouble. 

“Why were you on Mt. Ebott in the first place? And please, Asriel,” she says, her voice stern, her expression brooking no nonsense, “be honest, will you not?”

You know as soon as you duck your head to the side that you’ve already messed up. Mom can  _ always _ see through you when you try to lie. But there’s no way—there’s  _ no way _ you can tell her that your classmates teased you into making a stupid decision, that they call you wimp and crybaby more than they call you by name, and so you took the dare to climb the mountain without a second thought. And if she asks, then, what happened while you were underground—and you know she will—if you tell her the truth—you can’t do that to Chara and Frisk. They’re already trying to be better. If you let your mom know that they both tried to kill you, it’ll ruin everything. 

Maybe you can do the thing Chara does, where they don’t actually lie. You’ll just… leave out certain details. 

You get as far as, “My classmates were talking about how you’d have to be really brave to climb Mt. Ebott,” before Mom cuts you off.

“Asriel,” she says, and there’s not a lot of patience in her voice. “Last night, your father and I spoke to the children who had seen you last.” You squeeze your eyes shut and bite the inside of your cheek and tighten your grip on the chair. Mom’s voice softens as she continues, “We had no idea you were having such difficulties at school. That we did not notice, and that we made you feel as though you could not tell us of your problems—I am so sorry, my child.”

Your nose heats up, tingling unpleasantly; your shoulders shake with tiny tremors, and you try to hold yourself stiff to stop them. “It’s not that bad,” you mumble with a wobbly voice. “You and Dad have more important things to worry about.”

“No,” Mom says. You jerk your head up, eyes flying open to stare, but you didn’t mishear the thickness of her voice, the regret packed into that single syllable. When she blinks, the wetness at her eyes catches the light. “There is nothing in this world more important to us than you. When we thought we’d lost you…”

Her voice disappears into a choked intake of breath, and she shuts her eyes, bowing her head. She brings up one hand to cover her mouth, but you hear the sound anyway, pushing through her fingers, and you see the shudder run through the curve of her shoulders. Your mouth drops as you realize what you’re seeing.

It’s not unusual to see Dad cry, though unlike you, he can manage to hold it back until he’s home. Most people have no idea the mayor’s so easily moved to tears. But you’ve never seen Mom like this, shaking her head as little tears run down her cheeks, and you stare, dumbfounded. A strained noise gets caught in her throat, and your eyes go wide; what are you doing, just watching? You quickly slip from Dad’s chair, running the few steps it takes to cross the room and reach your mom. “I’m sorry!” you blurt, throwing your arms around her. “I didn’t mean to make you worry!”

“My little Asriel,” Mom whispers, and you can hear the sobs struggling to escape her control. She wraps you up in a hug, and you’re pulled kind of off balance by it, but you stay teetering in her embrace. “I’m sorry. You should not have to see me like this.” 

You shake your head, mussing up your own hair where you rub your face against her shoulder. “It’s my fault,” you say, muffled into her shirt. 

“It is not, at all,” she objects. “I am your mother. If you are unhappy, if you are unsafe, I have failed you as a parent.”

“That’s not true!” She’s started running her fingers through your hair, and you fall silent. Maybe… maybe you do wish that some things were different, but it’s not Mom’s fault. You know she does everything she can. You’re the one who’s always letting her and Dad down. Under your face, her shirt’s become damp—looks like she’s not the only one crying, now.

“Shh,” she murmurs, pressing her lips to your forehead. “My little prince. It will be all right.”

Your ears heat up at the nickname, but neither Chara nor Frisk is here to hear it this time, so you don’t say anything.

You wind up sitting in her lap, and she coaxes the rest of the story from you. You hear from her, too, what had happened after you’d started your climb—how your classmates had returned to their homes almost as soon as you were out of sight, how Mom and Dad had begun phoning the school when it was dinnertime and you still had yet to come home. The police had been involved right away—turns out you don’t have to wait a day to declare a kid missing, which makes sense, you guess. Goes to show you can’t learn everything from watching TV shows. Of course they’d spoken to your teachers and peers to find out where you’d been seen last, and then they’d searched the mountain for you; of course, you weren’t anywhere to be found. Somehow the hole you’d fallen through had gone undiscovered—you wonder if that has anything to do with the magic of the barrier, that you’d stumbled through it accidentally, yet the police and their trained dogs couldn’t follow your path to it. 

It seems you haven’t learned your lesson entirely, though, because as you’re describing your journey through the underground, you try to leave out the parts where Frisk and Chara were planning to murder you. Mom lets you stumble through a clumsily pieced-together explanation all the way until you describe Frisk walking you to the barrier, and then she starts to press you for more details. “And this barrier was keeping monsters trapped underground?” she asks, and you’ve barely answered yes before she’s firing off another question. “Yet now it is broken? How did that happen? Why did they not break it before today? Why did they decide to take you there, knowing you were trapped by the barrier as well, instead of telling you right away?”

Your mouth moves uselessly around answers you can’t give; you croak out vowels and lonely, unintelligible syllables, but there’s no partial explanation you can give that will make sense. Chara and Frisk made it seem so  _ easy_, to say things that were true but could be taken another way, to leave details out and let you assume the rest, but now that you’re on the spot, all you can do is flounder under your mom’s demanding stare.

Finally she takes pity on you, shaking her head and sighing. “Frisk and Chara told us everything while you were sleeping,” she says, and you sputter. 

“Everything?” you repeat, and she nods.

“That’s how I know how brave you were,” she says, brushing your hair behind your ear. “You faced down such danger, but you didn’t resort to violence. You refused to hurt anyone, even when you were scared.” 

You shake your head, dropping your gaze. “Are you,” you start, unsure—but you have to know, and so you push on. “Are you mad at them?”

“Furious,” she replies, without a moment’s hesitation. “It is to their credit that they were honest, and did not try to hide or dismiss their actions. But, had they succeeded in harming you—”

“It’s not their fault!” you say, grabbing Mom’s sleeve. “Everything was really messed up—everyone just wanted to wait around until Chara or Frisk could break the barrier, and nobody cared if they got hurt, and their parents are gone, and no one tried to help them!”

Mom’s smiling at you, still stroking your hair. “You are very kind, Asriel,” she says, and your mouth snaps shut. “I can see that those two are trying very hard to follow your example. However.” She speaks slowly, carefully handling her next words. “They put you in incredible danger. If you are angry, or frightened of them, or even slightly unsure, you do not have to involve yourself further.”

“I’m not,” you start to object immediately, and Mom places a finger over your mouth. You fall silent.

“It’s clear that they are struggling,” she says, “and I understand that you want to help them. Even if you are not comfortable with them, you might tell yourself that your feelings are not as important.” It’s hard to look Mom in the eyes. Her stare is intent, probing, and even though you’ve already told her the truth, you feel guilty. “You are kind, and brave, and a wonderful son, and I am so proud of you. But you do not have to do any more than continue to show them the kindness you already have. They are not your responsibility.”

Your confusion is undoubtedly written all over your face, and Mom’s expression softens in return. “It is strange to hear me say such a thing, is it not? But you cannot be responsible for them. You may support them, but it is up to them to make better choices for themselves.” Her fingers curl in your hair, before she smoothes it down. “And while they will need help, it does not have to come only from you.”

“Nobody else was there for them,” you pout. 

Mom nods. “That is another thing I would like to see change,” she says, and you know that tone. You almost feel a little bad for the other monsters. Not really, though—they definitely deserve for Mom to put them through the wringer for how Chara and Frisk were left on their own.

“Do you understand, my child?” Mom asks. You nod—you do think you get it. Mom wouldn’t have approved of you thinking that Frisk and Chara’s fights weren’t your problem, but it’s still their responsibility to stop if you ask them to. You can’t make them make better choices; you can only show them how. Mom smiles, and once more brushes your hair out of your face. “Those two are lucky to have a friend like you,” she says.

Your ears heat up, and you shake your head, pulling away and sliding off Mom’s lap to your feet. She laughs, then. “Would you like to get back to everyone else?” You want to open your mouth and tell her she’s wrong, that you’re not friends, but she was so sad to finally find out you had no friends at school. Instead you just nod, fiddling with the hem of your shirt, and Mom chuckles again as the two of you leave the study. Opening the door, you can immediately hear the loud conversation from the living room, though you can’t yet pick out actual sentences, only voices raised in questions. You move ahead of Mom, hurrying to get back and find out what you missed. 

The moment you walk through the door into the living room, Frisk straightens in Mom’s chair, twisting to face you. Despite not being able to see their eyes, you come to an abrupt halt, pinned in place by the force of their gaze. A moment later, Chara also turns to fix their red stare on you, and they smile.

“Asriel,” both boss monsters say at the same time.

You realize, as everyone else in the room turns to look at you, that the conversation has stopped. Mom catches up, and with her standing behind you, you can’t back away or retreat from everyone’s gazes. Gerson’s open eye is narrowed, as he peers at you as though he hasn’t ever seen you before, and Alphys’s eyebrows are raised in consideration. Even Papyrus looks pensive, hand to his chin as he looks at you. Trepidation begins to churn in your gut, and you shift nervously, your hands coming together to fidget. Before you can stammer out a question, maybe ask why everyone is suddenly staring at you, Undyne shoots up out of her chair.

“This brat!?” she demands, gesturing widely at you while she scowls at Chara. “This wimpy little  _ human? _ You can’t be serious!”

“I am,” Chara replies without missing a beat. They sit stiff and straight backed in Dad’s chair, their hands resting lightly on the armrests, and if you hadn’t already known they were royalty, you’d have no doubts now. 

Frisk, too, is sitting up straight, though their fingers twist the fabric of their pants, and you can see their toes curl and uncurl. Their voice fills the room, despite being quieter than Chara’s. “Asriel knew the prophecy was dumb right away. Said what he thought and stood up to everyone.” They look right at you, and their words thrum heavy in your chest like a drum. “I trust him.”

“This is not up for debate,” Chara picks up, before anyone can react to Frisk’s proclamation. “If Asriel accepts, we will not hear any arguments.”

It’s your dad who speaks up next. “Chara, Frisk,” he says, and you recognize that patient yet put-upon tone. “The reason you are establishing a council is so that you have the aid of adults until you are old enough to rule on your own. This defeats the purpose of—”

“Asriel,” says Chara, cutting your dad off sharply, not even bothering to look at him. They’re grinning; their fangs gleam in the sunlight that shines through the window. It doesn’t matter that their tunic is torn, three long rips across the chest. It doesn’t matter that they’re sitting in Dad’s recliner in your boring old living room. The tilt of their chin, the angle of their shoulders, the way their half-lidded eyes hold your attention as effectively as if they’d physically reached out and grabbed you by the chin to direct you to them—they’re a monarch in their throne, addressing their subjects. 

“Frisk and I would like to offer you the position of Ambassador, as well as a place on our Royal Council. Do you accept?”

  
  
  


You wind up not getting a chance to answer. Nobody is happy with Chara and Frisk’s proposal to appoint you as the first member of their council—not your parents, not Undyne or Gerson or Mettaton—but the two boss monsters aren’t budging on it. 

Well, to be fair, one person is happy with the decision. Papyrus thinks it’s a great idea. Alphys has been hiding her mouth in her hands and stuttering too much for you to figure out her thoughts, though you’re sure she’s also opposed. Sans just grins uselessly, not contributing anything helpful at all while the rest of the room erupts into loud debate.

In the end, the conversation is put on hold when Frisk demands lunch; you’re not entirely shocked to discover it’s nearly three in the afternoon. Everyone’s been arguing in circles for at least an hour. Papyrus offers to cook spaghetti, and you immediately insist that he’s the guest and shouldn’t have to do a thing, really, stay out of the kitchen, please.

You wind up ordering in, which you’re very okay with because you haven’t had chicken tikka masala in like five years. (Mom tells you not to exaggerate, and you roll your eyes and amend your statement to five weeks.) There’s a little bit of conversation amongst the monsters about how weird human food is, which you try and fail to avoid listening to. (Apparently sometimes Alphys would eat human food that she found in the dump, as long as the packaging was still completely sealed and airtight, because where else was she going to get ramen noodles—you try not to make a face at this, but when Frisk adds that they did the same thing, you can’t keep yourself from wincing.)

After lunch, by unspoken agreement nobody brings up the subject of the council again, returning to the topic of how they’re going to spread the news of the barrier breaking to both humans and monsters. After all, every monster underground has lived their entire lives expecting that they’d go to war once the barrier came down; Frisk and Chara are going to have to figure out how to tell everyone that they’re going to try peacefully sharing the surface with humans, instead. Somewhat surprisingly—or perhaps not surprisingly at all—Mettaton continues to provide helpful insights on things like the timing of when to release certain information. The ‘leak’ should be released to humans sooner rather than later; once monsters know the barrier’s down, they’re going to want to explore their freedom, and you’re going to have to quickly pave the way for them to do so safely.

“In fact, I have just the thing!” Mettaton says, excitement sparkling in his voice. A compartment in his rectangular body opens, and one of his noodly arms reaches in; he withdraws several folded garments, including—

“My sweater!” you exclaim. 

Mettaton’s screens flash a cheery pink as he tosses your sweater to you. When you catch it, it’s warm, as if it’s just come out of the drier, and you happily bury your hands and face in the soft fabric. “Did you think I would forget?” he teases. 

Well, you certainly hadn’t expected him to remember. You simply shake your head. 

When he shakes out the other clothes, they reveal themselves into two robes bearing the Delta Rune. Though they resemble the one you wore, the fabric is both thicker and layered, and the hems are edged with delicate patterns. These are clearly of a higher quality. One is navy blue with silver lining; the other is a rich purple with gold edges. 

Gerson is nodding, stroking his beard. “Best to make a good impression!” he comments. “From what I remember, you humans aren’t as scared of furry folk,” he says, catching your mom’s eye. 

She nods. “I expect people will be more at ease with their appearances than anyone else’s,” she agrees. To Frisk and Chara, she says, “This way, people will already know what you look like before we make the official announcements. Is that all right?”

Frisk shrugs, taking the navy robe from Mettaton. Their thumb rubs back and forth over the fabric.

“That’s probably for the best,” Chara says, accepting the purple robe for themself. “Humans can get used to us, first.”

Papyrus chimes in, “Should you need another friendly face to present to the masses, I, the Great Papyrus, would be happy to volunteer!” This manages to get a small, fleeting smile out of Frisk.

“Perhaps later,” your Dad says, gently dissuading the eager skeleton. 

“Yeah, like for Halloween,” you add, and duck sheepishly when Mom gives you a Look. It would be cool, though! 

“Hey,” says a voice you haven’t heard all day. On the sofa—has he moved from that spot at all?—Sans is looking at you. “Kid.” You frown at him; you’re listening! He just grins. Everyone else is waiting to hear what he says, too, and it irritates you, that he can get everyone’s attention so effortlessly. “If we’re staging photos to leak to the masses,” he says, “then you oughta be in them, too.”

You can see your parents about to object, but Mettaton plows in before they can get a word out. “Absolutely!” he trills, throwing up his arms and spinning his rectangular body in an excited circle on his stationary wheel. “Having darling Asriel in the shot is a must!”

Gerson nods, stroking his beard. “It’s a good idea, to show the children together. Gives everyone hope, to see the future of humans and monsters.”

“I-If humans don’t see Frisk and Chara with Asriel, they might n-not realize they’re k-kids too,” Alphys adds. “And it’ll be c-cute…” She claps her hands over her mouth, but everyone’s heard it already. Chara’s nose flushes bright pink, and you feel your ears heat up. Frisk drops their head, and they hold the navy robe close to their chest. 

In the awkward silence that follows Alphys’s statement, you wait for your parents to voice their dissent. When nobody speaks up, though, you turn to Mom, perplexed. She raises her eyebrows at you, and you realize she’s letting you make the decision. 

If you accept, you’re not just going to be on the news in town. Your picture’s going to be everywhere. The entire world is going to find out about monsters, and you’re going to be right in the thick of it. People in other countries, kids at school, everyone—because news like this, the fact that an entire other race is going to share the world with humans, it’s not just some inconsequential little story like when you got second place in the statewide spelling bee in fourth grade. 

And if you take on the role of Ambassador, all that attention, everyone watching you all the time—it won’t ever  _ stop_. 

You’re not  _ obligated _ to accept. It’s clear that including you will help the monsters’ efforts to peacefully join the rest of the world, but you still have a choice. You could say no. You could stay out of the photos and off the council. You could even ask that nobody say your name when they talk about how the barrier was broken, that they not spread the word that you’re the human who set monsters free. You could help them get started on their way, and then go back to your life. Back to school, back to keeping your head down and sitting alone at lunch and not wanting to talk about your day when you get home, while Chara and Frisk struggle through helping their people return to the surface.

That’s what you wanted, right? To go home, back to your normal life where things made sense. To not have to deal with Frisk and Chara’s many problems anymore. To wash your hands of all of it. To say it’s not your problem is inaccurate, but to accept all that attention and pressure—that’s not your responsibility. Everyone will understand if you can’t do it, if you want to help them in another way instead.

They tried to kill you, your brain reminds you, one last attempt to stop you from making your next big mistake.

“What do I need to do?” you ask.

Mettaton’s screens flicker pink and white and yellow as he clasps his hands joyfully. “Leave it to me, gorgeous!”

You’re already regretting your decision. But Chara’s smile is small and shy, and Frisk’s buried their lower face in their robe, and you know you wouldn’t have chosen anything else. 

  
  
  


Mettaton somehow has an entire lighting set stored in his metal body, and you’re starting to wonder how there’s any room in there for circuitry at all after he withdraws three metal stands, enormous tungsten lamps with metal ‘barn doors’ attached to direct the light, and those big, silvery, reflective umbrellas. He chases everyone but Alphys out of the living room, enlisting her help to set everything up. 

Mom and Dad take the opportunity to step into the front foyer, and their voices are hushed as they talk—you’re completely certain they’re discussing your involvement in all of this. You resist the temptation to eavesdrop, and you show Frisk and Chara where the bathrooms are (one on the first floor, one between your and your parents’ bedrooms on the second) so they can change into their robes. Privately, you’re glad Chara’s finally going to get out of those torn clothes. 

The rest of the monsters wind up migrating to the kitchen, dragging the wooden chairs in with them, and Gerson takes Undyne and Papyrus aside to speak to them. Sans sits casually at the table, and he winks at you when he sees you staring. 

It’s not very mature, but you stick your tongue out at him, and then turn and stomp out of the room. This leaves you with nowhere to go—Mettaton’s still busy in the living room, and going into your parents’ study when they’re not in there will look weird. If you go toward the foyer, your parents are going to stop talking so they can fuss over you instead. You could always go up to your bedroom, but Frisk and Chara will be back any minute now, and then Mettaton will probably drag you off to take the photos. You wonder exactly how he’s going to stage it—they’re going to have to appear candid, as though you’re unaware that you’re on camera, and he’s probably going to have to take them from outside to really sell the idea that some brave reporter snuck onto your property to find out the truth of why your Dad’s been home all day after your disappearance and subsequent reappearance. 

You idle in the hallway outside your parents’ study, until you hear the bathroom door open. Frisk steps out, holding the tunic to their chest and now wearing the navy robe. The shadows of their fur seem tinted blue, and the slight pink tint of their nose stands out, the only warm colour to be found on them. Their scruffy, unkempt appearance is at odds with the fine garment. 

“Where…?” they mumble, fidgeting with the tunic in their hands. You take it without a word. You’re not sure it’s worth saving, burned and torn up as it is, but you can at least put it in the laundry and let Frisk make that decision, later. “Chara?” they ask.

“Still getting changed upstairs,” you answer. They nod, and start to tug at their sleeves, before apparently remembering the quality of the robe. Their hand goes up to pull at their ear instead. 

“Do you,” they start to say, voice so quiet you have to concentrate on listening. They’re cut off almost as soon as they start by Chara appearing at the top of the stairs, green tunic bundled up under one arm. The purple and gold of their robe sets off the warm, creamy hues of their fur. You guess Mettaton would have to have good instincts for these things, to be so famous despite how absurd he is. Frisk falls silent as Chara comes down, shaking their head when you look at them inquisitively. You shrug, and take Chara’s tunic to deposit it with Frisk’s in the laundry hamper as the three of you return to the kitchen. 

“Your highnesses!” Papyrus loudly greets them as you walk in, his hands coming up to frame his face in excitement. “You both look so royal!”

Frisk bashfully ducks their head, and Chara’s smile grows. Gerson nods, his gap-tooth grin wide. “The king and queen’d’ve been proud to see you both like this,” he says.

The comment takes them off guard; Frisk jerks as though the words have physically hit them. Chara’s shoulders rise, and they shiver, even though the thick fabric of their robe looks like it should be plenty warm. 

“Really?” they ask, in a small voice.

Gerson nods. “Of course,” he promises. “Getting us here to the surface and taking charge like this, making your own decisions and not caring what anyone else says, it’s just what they would have wanted! Wa ha ha!”

Chara covers their mouth, but you can hear them giggle anyway. It’s a nervous sound, but their eyes are still focused on Gerson and their surroundings. “What a new experience,” they mutter, “making someone proud.”

“Hey!” Undyne slaps the table, and you jump. “I’m proud of you too, you punk!”

“Me too!” Papyrus joins in, clapping his hands once in front of his chest. “I have always been proud of you both! You have always cared so much about everyone underground, and now you’re starting to care about yourselves, too! I always believed you could do it!”

You furrow your eyebrows at that statement, even as Frisk ducks their head so low and so quickly that their ears flap, and Chara’s jaw drops. 

Gerson cackles again. “All that aside,” he says, still grinning hugely, “I’ve got a proposal of my own for you two.”

Chara forcefully smoothes out their expression, their fingers curling into fists that they then release once they’ve succeeded in pulling a smile back onto their face. “We’re listening,” they say, even though Frisk still looks like they’d rather sink right back underground with how much they’ve hunched in on themself.

“The Royal Guard needs to be assigned a new role,” Gerson says, leaning forward, his elbows on the table and his hands steepled. He rests his chin on his scaled, spotted hands, as he regards Frisk, Chara, and even you. “Some people are going to be disappointed when they learn we’re not fighting the humans.” His open eye glances in Undyne’s direction, though you don’t think she notices. He goes on, “You’re going to need to give everyone a new goal to keep them motivated.”

“You have a suggestion, I take it,” Chara says, and Gerson nods.

“It’s just a shift in perspective, from offense to defense,” he says. “Most of us will be doing just the same as we’ve been. Instead of fighting humans, we will protect monsters from any dangers, natural or man-made. My vice-captains have already agreed to serve as your personal guards.”

Undyne crosses her arms and nods to Chara. Papyrus waves enthusiastically at Frisk, as though he weren’t standing three feet away from them. It still gets Frisk’s lips to twitch minutely upward, and they wave back.

“Why not just dismantle the guard entirely?” you ask, and Gerson turns his stare entirely on you.

“Do humans not have a military?” he asks, and you shake your head quickly, as you realize what he means. Even if they don’t want a war, they’re not going to want to be defenseless. Satisfied, he returns his attention to Frisk and Chara. “What do you think of that?”

Frisk and Chara exchange a look, and Chara turns to Gerson. “We will trust your experience,” they say.

“Wa ha ha! Glad to hear it!”

Mettaton swoops into the kitchen then, all jubilant exclamations of how wonderful Chara and Frisk look in their robes. “You’re going to wow everyone!” he says, circling the two boss monsters as his monitors cycle through blue and yellow. He plucks lint off Chara’s shoulder and fusses with Frisk’s fringe, before wheeling back and putting his hands on his hips. You get a sense of extreme satisfaction, despite the complete lack of facial expression. “Come on, now, I’ve got everything set up!” 

He ushers you into the living room, guiding all three of you to sit on the sofa. You wind up in the middle of the two monsters, your legs tense and your spine straight as you endure the robot arranging you. He pulls a comb from somewhere and runs it through your bangs, and you have to stop yourself from slapping his arms away. It was a mistake to kick him, you remind yourself; your knuckles probably won't fare any better than your toes did. 

“Now, just act natural!” he instructs you, wheeling away. “I’ll let you know once we’ve got enough shots!” He disappears into the hallway, where you can see your parents and the other monsters are all looking in, watching you.

No pressure, or anything.

You close your eyes and exhale, shaking your head and probably undoing whatever Mettaton did to your bangs. ‘Act natural,’ huh? But when you open your eyes and look at the boss monsters on either side of you, Frisk is staring at the hardwood floor and area rug under the coffee table, and Chara’s smile looks about as fragile as a ceramic ornament. 

“So,” you say, and then have to swallow, your voice gravelly. “How… how do you like the surface, so far?”

Chara laughs, quiet and breathless. “The brief glimpses we’ve gotten from the windows have been lovely,” they chuckle. 

You try not to flinch. Of course, if you’re going to ask a stupid question like that.. 

“Sunrise was pretty. Wanna see the stars,” Frisk whispers. Their peek shyly over at you. “Go outside? Once the sun goes down?”

Your throat tightens. You don't want to have to be the one to tell them, but they face you expectantly, waiting for your verdict. “You can’t,” you tell them, trying to ignore how their mouth drops open in dismay. “We’re in the city, so there’s too many lights. You’ll only be able to see a few.” They look at you, their eyebrows drawn up, not understanding, and you shake your head. “You’ll see what I mean when it gets dark,” you say, and now it’s your turn to study your shoes. 

“Oh,” they say. Then, “Thought it’d be different. The surface. But just feels the same.”

“It almost doesn’t seem real,” Chara says. “How can we truly be here, on the surface, if we’re both still alive?” They laugh; you reach for their hand, and as your fingers slip between theirs, they grow quiet, shaking their head. “We’re spending all this time trying to figure out how to approach the humans peacefully, instead of leading an attack. The king and queen aren’t here to guide us. Even the little things we counted on, like seeing the stars, aren’t happening.” They lift up your joined hands, examining how your fingers intertwine with their own. Theirs are thicker, but you have one more digit than they do, and your thumb and pinkie bookend your shared grip, all of Chara’s fingers contained between yours. “Part of me insists I should be disappointed that nothing’s gone the way I wanted,” they say, twisting your wrists to study your hands from another angle.

“Are you?” you ask. You’re not sure if you’re whispering because you don’t want your parents or the other monsters to hear, or because you’re too scared of the answer.

“I don’t know,” Chara says, lowering your joined hands. They shake their head again, their ears slowly dragging back and forth across their shoulders. “I don’t know what I’m feeling.”

“Asriel?” Frisk asks. You’re beginning to regret the arrangement of you in the middle on the sofa. It’s awkward, when both monsters want to talk to you at the same time, and you have to keep going back and forth. When you turn to face them, they’re looking at you with their favoured blank expression. One of their hands is in their lap; the other rests idly on the sofa cushion between the two of you, several inches away from your free hand. “How do you feel?” 

“I’m,” you start, but the next word won’t leave your mouth. You blink, but everything’s the same. You’re still on the sofa, sitting between Frisk and Chara. You’re not dizzy, and nothing’s moving, but you still feel like you’re drifting backward, that dolly-zoom effect of being embedded in the sofa cushions even as you float away. 

Not twenty-four hours ago, the two monsters sitting next to you both tried to kill you, and now Frisk’s asking you how you feel. 

All day your attention’s been pulled in one direction and then the other, the demands of the immediate future taking priority. The fate of an entire race is going to depend on the decisions made here, in your house. Frisk and Chara have been in your home this entire day, but not once in that time have you really, really thought about what’s happened between the three of you. Even when recounting everything to your mom, you didn’t focus on the bad parts, skimming over them as much as you could to try to tell her a version of events where you weren’t ever in danger, or afraid, or utterly devastated.

They want you to be a part of their Royal Council, and they’ve both told you they weren’t ever your friends. You’ve shared meals together and screamed at each other and held hands and hugged one another. They kept information from you so you’d trust them, so you’d never see it coming when they tried to murder you.

They tried to kill you. They tried to kill each other.

You should be terrified of them. You shouldn’t even entertain the idea of being part of their council for a moment. And yet here you are, sitting next to them, holding Chara’s hand, doing whatever you can to reassure them, to support them.

Shouldn’t you feel angry? 

Shouldn’t you feel betrayed?

You were going to be sacrificed so they could be free.

“I don’t know,” you whisper. The sound of your own small, raspy voice echoes in the space between your skull and your skin. Chara’s hand is still soft and warm in yours, but you feel like your head is a hundred feet away from your arm, from that gentle point of contact. “Everyone’s—everything’s happening all at once. I,” and you manage to stop yourself before you blurt out, ‘I don’t want to think about it.’

Frisk nods, as if you’d completed your sentence. They don’t change their expression, and you can’t tell if they expected you to say as much, or if they simply don’t care. Your nightmare from the morning—was it really just today?—bursts vividly into your mind, the memory of Frisk’s open eyes, red and black and a silver that matched the steel arcing through the air toward you—

“Well, I’m sure we’ll all figure out soon enough,” says Chara, bright and loud. They giggle behind their free hand, even though there’s no doubt in your mind that they’re not joking in the slightest. 

“Hug them,” Frisk says, a quiet command. You start, turning to look at them, and they nod their head toward Chara, as though you need the clarification. “Make you both feel better.” Then they tilt their head, as though listening to something, and add, “And Mettaton needs better photos of us.”

“What, you don’t think that our awkward feelings jam is photogenic enough?” Chara giggles, but when you catch their eyes, their smile drops. “You don’t have to,” they say, quickly. “We’ll stage some other photos.” They bite their lip, and their fingers between yours wiggle as they withdraw their hand.

“It’s okay,” you whisper, catching their paw before they can take it away. Your fingers press against the soft pad of their palm, your thumb smoothes down the fur on their knuckles, and you can’t look up at them. “I… it’s okay.” 

“Ah.” Their voice catches on your name; you can hear them swallow, and they try again. “Asriel.”

You scoot a little closer to them on the couch, angling to face them better even though you still can’t bring yourself to look up. It’s just for the photos. It’s not that serious. It’s just a hug.

“Asriel,” they say your name again. “I… We were so awful to you, but I’m glad it wasn’t another human who fell. I’m glad it was you.” They shift over on the cushions as well, close enough to bump your shoulder with their own. “Isn’t that terrible? I’m happy you’re the one we hurt like that, because you’re a good person.” They giggle, a quiet sound that quickly dies.

You raise your head just enough to see them through your bangs. Their nose is nearly as red as their eyes, and their fangs dig into their lower lip as they chew it. You drop your gaze again, and hide your face in their shoulder as you bring your other arm up to hug them. They’re slow to return the embrace, but when they at last get their arm around your side, they hold you tight. Their chin rests on your shoulder, and you can hear them huff out a shaky exhale. 

“I’m sorry,” they whisper. You’re positive you’re the only one who can hear their small voice. “I’m sorry for everything.” 

You hug them tighter. Your side is already complaining from the awkward twist of your torso, but you don’t want to let go. Chara’s warm, and their grip is strong, their hand on your back and their arm around you a solid, firm hold. Even though you still feel a little floaty, they hold you steady, and you don’t feel like your limbs are quite so detached anymore. You shouldn’t trust it—you shouldn’t let yourself believe the strength of their embrace is meant to keep you safe, not with what they’ve done—but you can feel yourself relax, leaning more of your weight on them. Despite everything, Frisk’s right—you are starting to feel better.

From the hallway, you hear a distinct squeal of, “Oh my god!” 

Your eyes fly open, and you jerk back, nearly flinging yourself into Frisk. Chara, too, startles, flailing into the sofa’s armrest. Both of you turn accusing glares to the hallway, where Alphys has clapped her hands over her mouth. There’s the slightest orange tint to the yellow scales on her cheeks—is that a  _ blush? _ “I-I’m sorry,” she squeaks, muffled through her hands, as she tries to back away and extract herself from the other monsters and your parents.

Chara looks at you. Their nose is still flushed with bright colour, their eyes wide and their eyebrows drawn in. They two of you stare at each other, bewildered, for a long moment, and then Chara’s mouth begins to twitch upward. You press your lips tight together, but as Chara’s grin grows, you know you’re fighting a losing battle. 

They burst into giggles, bending forward and trying to contain their laughter with their hands, and you follow suit, unable to stop yourself from cracking up. You fall back into the couch cushions, holding yourself as you dissolve into belly-aching laughter, and Chara outright cackles, leaning on you for support. You can’t stop—you’re quickly out of breath, still shaking with giggles, and you squeak like a leaky balloon as you try to inhale and just start laughing again instead. Your inability to rein yourself in sets Chara off again, and they kick out their legs as they fall into a fresh fit of giggles against you.

“This is,” they gasp out between laughs, “ _ridiculous!_ ”

“It’s not even that funny!” you agree, wheezing. You catch their eyes again, and looking at them was a mistake; you’re both set into yet more peals of laughter.

You’re almost worried you won’t be able to stop—which is silly, of course you’ll calm down  _ eventually_. If you can stop grinning at Chara, because the two of you keep setting each other off, that might help. Still giggling, you turn your head the other way, and your eyes fall on Frisk.

They haven’t moved. They’re still sitting next to you, as stiff and unaffected as the stone walls of the underground caverns. The flat lines of their mouth and eyes are completely unreadable—there’s no lift or drop in any of their features, no hint of a frown or smile. Your laughter dies in your mouth, and it leaves a bad taste behind, even when you look away. 

Soon after, Mettaton swoops back in, reporting happily that he’s managed to collect plenty of material to sort through. You’re all once more swept up in the rush of discussions and planning—Dad’s set up times to meet with a few city councilors and the chief of police tomorrow morning, and Gerson and the Royal Guard are going to spread the word that Frisk and Chara will be making a royal address from the castle. Mom sits aside with Mettaton to review the photos he’s collected for the leak. Sans falls asleep on the couch, and you try not to grind your teeth. 

You almost miss Alphys and Frisk stepping out into the hallway. You glance around, but nobody else seems to have noticed—Chara’s going over tomorrow’s schedule with Dad and the three Royal Guard members to make sure there’s enough time to return to Mt. Ebott after meeting with the humans, Mom is asking Mettaton if she can have copies of some of the photos, and Sans is snoring. You get up, and nobody says anything when you also slip out of the living room.

“Y-You p-promised,” Alphys is saying. Her voice is quiet and, despite her stutter, she’s speaking calmly. “Once the b-barrier c-comes down, you s-said.”

You walk down the hallway until you can see both monsters in the foyer. Outside, the sun is finally going down, and dim orange light is filtered in through the frosted glass windows around the front door, highlighting their silhouettes in gold. Frisk isn’t facing Alphys, but you can see them nod in response to what she’s said.

“Tomorrow.” Their voice is so low you almost can’t hear, but you aren’t going to walk any closer—you’re pretty sure you shouldn’t be listening. “After address at castle. Get Mom and the others.” 

“Frisk,” Alphys starts, and trails off. She reaches a hand out, and Frisk doesn’t move as she sets her small clawed fingers on their elbow. “I-I know it’s scary,” she says. “B-But it’s the right thing to do. The s-sooner w-we tell everyone the t-truth, the b-better.”

Frisk nods again. “Tomorrow,” they repeat. 

“I-It might not m-mean much,” Alphys says, “but I-I’m proud of you, too, Frisk.”

They step away from her, letting her hand fall off their arm. “Thank you,” they say. The words are empty formality; from how Alphys takes her hand back and bows her head, she recognizes them as such, too. 

You turn around. As quickly as you can while still remaining quiet, you walk back to the living room.

  
  
  


You’re pretty sure it’s not even past seven when you start yawning. Mom notices, and before you know it, she’s got everyone wrapping up their discussions and getting ready to go. It doesn’t take much time to decide that the monsters who are in your house will be returning to their own homes for the night, not only because their absence might be noted and raise suspicion, but also because of the simple fact that your house does not have enough room for all these monsters. You guess that once the existence of monsters is a publicly known fact, and people figure out how to exchange gold (because apparently gold coins are what they use as currency? And you missed this fact while you were down there?) for dollars, monsters will probably start looking for places to live on the surface. For now, your dad’s going to drive everyone back to the mountain, and either he or Mom will pick them up tomorrow morning.

As everyone sorts out the final details of timing, Chara lingers, and you make your way to their side. They give you a small, insubstantial smile; you return one of your own, just as meaningless. 

“Your parents are nice,” they mumble, watching your dad patiently tell Papyrus that no, he can’t let the skeleton drive them without a permit or license, but he’s happy to let Papyrus sit in the front passenger seat. Papyrus is thrilled at the compromise, holding his hands in fists at his chest and hopping back and forth from foot to foot, and it brings a smile to Dad’s face.

You think about everything you know about Chara’s parents. It’s not a lot, but it’s enough that you bring a hand up to rub at your upper arm and look away. “I guess so,” you say. You grasp desperately for a different topic to talk about before they go—you don’t want to end the evening on this note, thinking about how they’re going back home to those empty rooms in that empty castle. Once everyone leaves, you’ll get to eat dinner with your parents, and even though you’re not like a kindergartener or anything, they’re probably going to tuck you in, because they’d been so worried for you. Meanwhile, Chara’s going to spend the night in the same lonely place where their parents lived and died.

“They really care about you,” Frisk says from your other side, and you jump, only managing not to yelp because you’re too tired. Frowning at them, you can’t tell if they’re sorry for startling you, or if they even realize that they have, the neutral lines of their face once more a mystery. 

It occurs to you, then, that Frisk, too, will be going back to those ruins, to their dingy room—they didn’t even have a mattress, you remember, just a pile of blankets and pillows. 

“Hang on,” you mutter to them, already walking across the room to Mom. She’s speaking lowly with Gerson; as you approach, they both stop their conversation, and Mom smiles at you. 

“Did you need something?” she asks, turning to face you.

You nod, glancing back over your shoulder at Frisk and Chara. They’re both watching you; neither one has moved, and there’s still enough empty space between them for you to stand and hold out your arms without hitting either one of them, probably. 

“Do you think,” you start, looking back up at Mom, “that Frisk and Chara could spend the night?” She presses her lips together, and you barrel on before she can say no. “Dad doesn’t have enough room in the van to take everyone in one trip, anyway, so it’d save him time, and they don’t—”

You catch yourself before you blurt out every personal detail of Frisk and Chara’s lives. Gerson must already know most of it, you think, but from the way his eye is fixed on you, you’re pretty sure he wouldn’t have thought much of you blabbing out their secrets. “I don’t think they want to go back home,” you finish weakly. “Please, Mom?”

She raises her eyes to look over you at the two waiting boss monsters. At least she’s actually thinking about it, instead of just saying no right away, but you watch her face anxiously for any hints that you might need to say something else to try to persuade her.

“You may ask them if they would like to,” Mom says, and your mouth drops open into a smile. You barely remember to thank her before you’re running back across the room to Chara and Frisk. 

You don’t know if they heard what you said to Mom—with those ears, can they hear better than you? Probably better to ask them regardless, and so you barrel into the invitation. “Do you guys wanna stay here tonight?”

Chara’s eyes go wide, and in a soft voice they ask, “Really?” 

At the same time, Frisk says, “No.”

Chara turns to look at the other monster, confusion written in their slack jaw and lowered eyebrows. You hadn’t planned on a refusal; it takes you a moment to recover. “Oh,” you say, your shoulders and mood both dropping. And then, because you don't know how to quit when you're ahead, you ask, “Why?”

“Same as you wanted to get back to your parents,” they point out. “Mom's been alone all day.”

Something about the wording seems off to you. Not, ‘Mom is probably worried about me,’ or, ‘she might be wondering where I am.’ Saying that their mom’s been alone all day, it sounds more like someone worried about having left a—a pet, like a dog or something, alone for too long.

‘Said I didn't have parents _ taking care of me,’ _ you remember Frisk saying to Chara. Does that mean...

Frisk tilts their head, and then, as if they’ve realized why you and Chara are staring at them, adds, “Thank you, though.”

You’re slow to remember to say, “You’re welcome.” Frisk gives a small nod, and then walks away without another word, joining the monsters congregating by the door to the garage.

You stare at them as they leave, then shake your head. If they’d rather go back home to  _ that_, you’re not going to stop them. You turn to face Chara. “You can still stay if you want.”

You’re not sure Chara’s listening to you. They’ve closed their mouth, but their narrowed eyes are still fixed to Frisk. You look back over to the other boss monster, but Frisk either doesn’t notice your combined stares, or is ignoring you. 

“Chara?” you ask.

They turn to face you. “Yeah,” they smile. It’s small, but grateful. “I’d like to stay.”

  
  
  


Turns out that Frisk choosing to go back to their home works out for the best, because once Undyne finds out that Chara’s staying the night with you, she insists on staying as well. 

“What kind of guard would I be if I left you here alone!” she yells, and though Chara assures her that they will be perfectly safe, there’s no dissuading her. You guess it’s good that she’s taking her new position as their personal guard seriously. Hopefully she’ll actually intervene if they’re in danger, from now on. So when your dad drives back to Mt. Ebott, Chara and Undyne stay behind, and Mom sets out two extra plates at the table. She has you help with preparing dinner, and as always, it’s pretty satisfying to mix up the macaroni in the melted cheese. You keep going even after you could conceivably stop, and even though your arm is getting tired, because you really like the noise of the wooden spoon going through all that sticky mac and cheese. 

You wait until Dad gets back to eat. When he sits down with you, you sing the hamotzi together; Chara and Undyne clearly have no idea what it is, but they’re respectfully silent until you’re done. Once you get started, Undyne loudly voices her thoughts on dinner—mainly, that it’s great—and the face Chara makes when they take their first bite is pretty hilarious, their eyes narrowed incredulously as they chew. They’re also clearly not fond of the broccoli, which you’re a little sad about because it’s your favourite vegetable, but you can understand. Mom makes them and Undyne eat all their greens anyway, and you have to shove a bite into your mouth so you don’t start laughing at how Undyne ducks her head and sulkily finishes her vegetables.

After dinner, you find the spare toothbrushes that you knew were somewhere in the bathroom cabinet. They’re still in their plastic containers and unopened, and you give them to Undyne and Chara. While the three of you brush your teeth, Mom and Dad dig out a sleeping bag and padded bed roll, setting up a spot on the floor next to your bed for Undyne. Your bed goes to Chara, and for you, it’s the pull-out sofa bed. 

Chara can’t fit your pajamas—for all that they’re the same height as you, they’re a little bigger. You lend them one of the many oversized t-shirts you’ve collected from attending big charity fund-raisers with your dad, and a pair of sweatpants with a drawstring waist.

When they come out of the bathroom in your borrowed clothes, yawning, you blurt out before you can think better of it, “You’ve got a tail, too?”

Their nose goes bright red as they spin to face you, their hands flying behind them to hide it, but you’ve already seen. Just like Frisk’s, it’s short and fluffy, peeking out under the t-shirt. 

“It’s—not polite, to let your tail out in public,” Chara mumbles, looking at the floor.

“But Frisk does,” you say, and Chara scoffs. Your brain catches up to your mouth, then—considering everything you know about Frisk, they don’t strike you as overly concerned with propriety. “Sorry,” you say. “Should I, um. Not look?”

Chara shrugs. “It doesn’t matter.” They let their hands hang at their sides. “It’s kinda embarrassing if you stare, though.”

“Sorry!” You jerk your head up to focus on their face instead. They chuckle, and you let your shoulders sag in relief, that you haven’t made them angry with your faux-pas. 

“Anyway,” they mumble, smiling at you. “Thank you for letting me stay here. After everything, I wouldn’t have been surprised if... you didn’t want to be anywhere near me.” They reach across themself to hold one elbow, nervously rubbing their arm. 

You’re still a little surprised by that yourself, but when you look at them—they’re a kid like you, the same height as you, in your borrowed, oversized clothes, and when they give you a sheepish smile, the dark slash of fur across one cheek curves up. You think you’re still more grateful they’re alive and here in front of you than afraid of them. 

Dad comes out of his and Mom’s room, then. He’s got another big t-shirt and pair of sweatpants over his arm, presumably for Undyne’s use. “You kids just about ready for bed?” he asks, ruffling your hair. You swat at his hand, grinning, and he laughs. It’s a quiet, content sound, as natural as breathing. “Tori probably has the sheets and pillows down on the couch for you now.”

“Okay, Dad,” you say, smiling over at Chara again. You feel your face drop as you look at them. They’re watching you and Dad, and their smile’s gone, their mouth a flat line that seems like it’d be more at home on Frisk’s face. 

“Do you need anything else, Chara?” your dad asks them. The concern in his voice is clear to you, but you wonder if Chara can hear it, or if they think he’s only asking out of politeness.

They shake their head quickly, their ears flapping over their shoulders, and when they look at you again, they’re chewing their lip. All they say, though, is, “Good night, Asriel.”

“Night, Chara.”

You can’t help but feel like you’ve forgotten to do or say something, as though you missed a step or left the conversation unfinished. But they disappear into your room, and it’s as clear an indication as anything else that they’re done for the night.

As you’d predicted, Mom and Dad tuck you in downstairs on the couch. “Wake us up if you need anything,” Mom tells you, brushing your bangs aside so she can kiss your forehead. You let your eyes close, leaning into the contact. “Good night, my little prince,” she whispers, and gives you another kiss for good measure. 

“We both love you very much,” Dad says, holding your hand through the blankets. “We’re so glad to have you home safe.”

“Don’t cry, Dad,” you mumble, embarrassed, but it’s too late for both of you. Mom shakes her head in fond exasperation.

Once you and Dad have wiped your faces off, you all exchange another round of hugs and ‘good night’s and ‘love you’s, and then they have to tuck you back in because the blankets got messed up from all the hugging. Finally they head back upstairs, clicking off the lights as they go. 

Despite that it’s not your comfy bed, in your room with the dragon posters and glow-in-the-dark stars on the ceiling, you fall asleep almost instantly.

  
  
  


The first time you wake up from nightmares, the DVD player clock says it’s not even one in the morning yet. You roll over, and you’re able to go back to sleep fairly quickly.

The second time, you lie awake for several long moments, trying to expunge the details of the nightmare fully from your mind before you go back to sleep, and you attempt to replace your thoughts with something more benign. You think of the new movies that are coming out this holiday season—it’s a complete stereotype, but your family always goes to the theaters on Christmas, since you’re not celebrating it but you all have the day off anyway. Mom and Dad usually let you pick the movie, and even though Dad’s totally embarrassing because he’s always asking questions in the middle of the movie and he doesn’t understand anything but he  _ still _ cries at the endings, every time, you always enjoy yourselves.

This year, will monsters go to the movies with you? 

You think about Frisk and Chara watching something like  _ The Lion King _ with you, and giggle quietly to yourself, rolling onto your side.

The third time your nightmare violently shocks you awake, you stare at the glowing digits of the DVD player clock for several long minutes, your mind refusing to do anything but replay the vivid details of your dream whenever you close your eyes. 

It’s not real. It didn’t happen—not like that. The details are all wrong. The boss monster in your nightmares has eyes that are entirely red, like an albino rat or rabbit or something, shining pools of pure colour with no visible pupil. They loom over you with a mouth full of nothing but rows and rows of fangs, lips pulled back in a gaping grin, dust spilling from between their teeth. A crown is set on their head, surrounded by four spiraling horns, and they wield blades that shift from sword to spear to dagger, in the way that dreams aren’t ever consistent. Everything around you is on fire, and the monster disappears into the flames and you can’t see it, no matter which way you turn your head, and you have to run but you trip over your robe, and you can hear, under the roar of the flames, alongside Frisk’s terrible growl, the sound of Chara laughing at you. 

The first time, this morning, you woke up after they brought their blades down on your soul. But when the nightmare had returned, Papyrus was there too. He'd encouraged the boss monster to do better, and said he believed in them. He'd opened his arms for a hug. The next thing you’d seen was his skull flying through the air, the rest of his body dissolving before you. Then, the next time you’d fallen asleep, it had been Alphys cowering alongside you, stuttering terrified pleas up until the moment she fell to dust under that glaive.

In the nightmare you just woke up from, it was Mom and Dad.

The DVD player says it’s about a quarter after four. You’re tired, and you’re afraid to go back to sleep.

They’re not going to try to kill you again. You don't have to be scared. They don't want to fight anyone anymore. And they're definitely not going to hurt your parents, or Alphys, or Papyrus, or any other monster. They know that what they did was wrong, and the barrier’s broken now anyway. They’re sorry—Chara apologized, and Frisk—

—Frisk hasn’t said a word to you about what they tried to do. 

‘Frisk doesn’t care about anything or anyone,’ Chara had told you of them.

‘Chara won’t say something that’s not true,’ Frisk had said.

You pull your blankets up to your chin, huddling under the covers, but the chill creeping in your chest remains.

Now, they want you to be their ambassador? They want you on their council? They don’t even care about you enough to offer a token apology, but they want you to help them for the foreseeable future? 

And you would have said yes, too. That’s the worst part—you were ready to agree. Are you still that desperate for them to like you, even after everything that’s happened?

Your eyes are wet. 

You’re not surprised when you wake up from another nightmare a little after six. You lie on the sofa bed as the dawn’s light slowly creeps into the living room, and though you can’t keep your eyes open or stop yourself from yawning, you’re still awake at seven thirty when you hear your parents’ footsteps upstairs. 

You have a feeling it's going to be a long day.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> chapter visuals:
> 
> the dreemurr household waffle iron: <https://twitter.com/inverts/status/805229083261026304>
> 
> children laugh to keep from crying: <https://twitter.com/inverts/status/804558235625734144>
> 
> Asriel's pajayjays (and other cute outfits for frisk & chara): <http://inverts.tumblr.com/post/153658110785/theres-no-need-to-know-the-ending-when-youre>


	2. The Road To Hell Is

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Yeah we all die young (we need [no victims in this](http://enantiomorphic.tumblr.com/post/145595951755/markpichay-blog-blog-plague-lyrrds))

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I've added a tag for [dissociation](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Dissociation_\(psychology\)).

You hear footsteps start to descend the stairs, and though you already knew you weren’t getting any more sleep, it’s with great reluctance that you roll out of the sofa bed and resign yourself to starting the day. When Mom peeks into the living room to see you already folding the couch back up, she smiles and tells you good morning. You think she’s probably kind of pleased to see you up and putting the living room back in order without having to be asked. Mom’s already completely dressed—sometimes she doesn’t put her hijab on until she’s ready to leave the house, but because you have guests over, she’s already wearing it. Her scarf today is one that you bought her for her birthday last year, coloured with dark purple and blue and black dyes and dotted with stars. 

“How do you feel about oatmeal for breakfast?” she asks. You give a noncommittal answer—it’s not waffles, that’s for sure, but a hot, sweat meal is still nice. Maybe there are raspberries in the fridge that you can add in.

Instead of heading into the kitchen, though, Mom comes over and helps you put the sofa cushions back in place once you’ve got the mattress folded up. Once the two of you have the couch back together, she sits down and pats the space next to her. You sit with her, and wait for her to tell you whatever it is she obviously wants to talk about.

“Asriel,” she starts, and you shift in your spot. “I would like to speak with you about our guests. Is that all right?” 

You nod, looking down at your knees and picking at the hem of your pajama shirt. It’s nice that she asks you if it’s okay, but there are going to be lots of talks about the monsters, you bet. Better to get whatever it is out of the way.

“Yesterday, you mentioned that Chara and Frisk do not have parents,” she says. You nod again. “I should have asked you to elaborate then, but instead, I assumed they still had someone to take care of them. This is not the case, is it?”

You shake your head. Mom frowns deeply, looking to the side in consideration. After a moment, she turns a kinder gaze to you. “Would you be able to tell me what you know of their home lives, my child?”

You glance to the living room door, but you don’t see anyone in the hall. Hopefully Chara and Undyne are still asleep in your room—you might be the kind of moron who would start talking about someone else where they could catch you at it, but your mom’s not that foolish. If she’s asking you, probably she knows you won’t be overheard.

“Chara lives alone,” you say. “Their parents…” You’re not lying, you tell yourself. You’re just leaving out the cause. “... died a few years ago.” It occurs to you, as you speak, that you don’t know exactly  _ when_—how old was Chara when they had to start taking care of themself entirely? Fixing their all own meals, washing all their own dishes, doing all their laundry, remembering to do all the chores your parents make you do, plus who knows what else you haven’t thought of—if Chara’s your age, or close to it, and Gerson says the old Royal Guard Captain died four or five years ago—

Five years ago, you were seven, just starting the second grade. You knew how to read, although your spelling was hideous, and you could do basic addition and subtraction. Your most pressing concerns were staying in the lines in colouring book pages, whether or not the swing set would be free during recess, and if you could ask Mom and Dad to get you a video game console for your next birthday. 

“Asriel?” Mom asks, brushing your bangs out of your face. She leans down to get a good look at you, a wavy lock of hair escaping her scarf to drape over her cheek as she does. “Are you truly all right?”

You nod, swallowing. Should you tell her what you know? It’s not your secret to share, but shouldn’t Mom know how dangerous Chara is?

Mom’s giving you that look that means she doesn’t believe you for a second, so you plow on before she can press for a real answer. “Frisk’s mom kind of… got really sick, and never got better.” You’re almost proud of yourself for figuring out a way to succinctly explain that situation without having to tell Mom about the horrifying circumstances of Frisk’s parent. This is no time to pat yourself on the back, though. “They live together, but I think Frisk takes care of their mom instead of the other way around. Some people—I think some people think Frisk’s mom died.” That, at least, is a lie—you  _ know _ most people still believe Frisk’s mom to be dead—but you allow yourself this much.

Mom shakes her head, tucking her hair back in her scarf. “How could anyone stand the thought of those two children living on their own?” 

You bite at the inside of your cheek. Almost nobody had known the specific truth about Frisk’s mom or what really happened to Chara’s parents, but everyone  _ had _ known the two boss monsters no longer had anyone taking care of them. Alphys, the one monster who might have been able to help Frisk and their mom, had been scared away from doing anything, but what’s everyone else’s excuse?

For a moment, you wonder how scary Frisk could have even been, at age seven. Although, you can’t be completely certain Frisk and Chara are the same age as you, and Gerson’s memory can’t really be trusted, so they could have even been eight or nine, but the question still remains. How could Alphys have been so intimidated by a little kid?

But Chara, who couldn’t beat Frisk in a fight, was able to kill two adults at that age—one of whom was the captain of the Royal Guard.

Just how strong  _ are _ boss monsters, compared to others?

“Asriel,” Mom says, getting your attention again. “I do not think that those two should continue to be on their own. They are insisting on carrying the burden of leadership, but if we do not make sure they are well supported, we are setting them up to fail.” She’s got that thoughtful look she gets when she and Dad are plotting—or, more honestly, when she’s making a plan for Dad to follow. For a moment you think this means that you can relax. Your mom can solve any problem. 

But then she looks at you, and there’s an agonizing half second that passes before she finally gives you a fond smile. The fountain of cold fear that springs forth in your gut only runs harder when, instead of telling you how she’s planning to fix things, she changes the subject to ask, “And did you sleep well, last night?”

You’re pretty sure you can manage a lie this small, but before you have to, you hear Undyne waking up, a process that somehow echoes throughout the entire house. Mom shakes her head as she stands, though you think her smile’s more amused than put-upon. 

The whole house starts getting up at that point, and though your regular morning routine is a little thrown off by having to share the bathroom with two guests, soon enough you’re all at the kitchen table having breakfast. Except for Mom, everyone’s still in their pajamas; Undyne’s texted Alphys to bring new clothes for her and Chara for the day. Nobody seems to really want to talk that much at breakfast, probably because there’s going to be enough politics and discussions and speeches during the day, and nobody wants to deal with it sooner than they need to. Dad makes extra tea, which he offers to Chara and Undyne, and they both seem to like it. (Though Undyne says it could be hotter.) It’s fortunate for everyone that it’s a Saturday; you don’t have to ask if you can stay home from school again, and Dad doesn’t have to cancel any meetings. 

Your parents let the morning news play on the living room TV while you eat, and you can hear it in the kitchen. You were prepared to hear the news anchors talking about you—it’s easy enough for them to confirm that your missing person’s report’s been closed because you were found—but it still makes you bite the inside of your cheek when they make snide remarks about how you just wanted to be an irresponsible youth, and you made everyone worry for nothing. 

“Why are they saying those things?” Chara asks, putting their spoon down. They’re frowning, and their eyes are narrowed. “That’s not a news report. That’s gossip.”

“Well, we have been mysteriously silent since yesterday. Of course people will speculate,” Dad says, shrugging with a smile. “Don’t worry,” he adds, reaching across the table to mess up your bangs. “The truth will come out. It always does.”

Once you’re all done eating, Mom takes the van to pick up the monsters from Mt. Ebott, since Dad did all the driving yesterday. Before she leaves, she tells you not to go looking up more news about your disappearance, because it will just upset you. You already know everything you need to. There’s no reason to subject yourself further. You know she’s right, but it still rankles. 

You’re left with a pocket of free time before Mom gets back with everyone else, and after you finish the dishes (Chara offers to help, and Undyne says they shouldn’t have to and that she’ll do it instead, and then a bowl gets cracked in half and you just wind up doing all the rest on your own) you’re not really sure what to do. You’ll never admit it to anyone, but you’ve sometimes entertained fantasies of having friends over, showing them your cool video game collection and watching movies and hanging out the way normal kids with friends hang out. Now you’ve got guests, but even though Chara’s your age, it’s not at all like having a friend from school over. Somehow, the thought of asking if Chara wants to play a few rounds of Mortal Kombat doesn’t seem like the correct course of action.

Fortunately, before you can agonize over it too much, your dad invites Chara to talk with him in the living room—which, of course, means he gets Undyne’s attention too. He seems perfectly pleased to have her glaring and baring her teeth at him as she follows.

Dad sits in his armchair, and you can’t help but compare your memory of Chara sitting there yesterday to the sight of your dad now. Chara was so small in the big recliner; when they sat in it, there was space between their legs and the chair’s arms on both sides. Their knees aren’t in quite the same place on their legs as yours are, but their feet hung off the edge of the seat when they were settled all the way back in the chair. They’d still commanded the room’s attention, regal and confident, but when your dad smiles at the three of you now, there’s no need for him to  _ command _ anyone’s attention—he simply has it, effortlessly. It’s not only that he’s big, though he does fill out the recliner as though it were made specifically for him. Somehow, despite how embarrassing and bumbling your dad can be, despite how his smile is gentle and warm and welcoming, despite all of the things that make him your  _ dad_—well, you guess he got elected mayor for a reason.

“From what I understand, you and Frisk grew up very independently,” Dad says, as Chara sits down on the sofa. You sit next to them, doing your best to ignore Undyne’s continual glower as she stands to their other side. “I hear you currently live alone?”

You can see Chara’s eyebrows pull inwards, even as they try to mirror Dad’s smile. “That’s correct.”

Dad nods, and you know that he didn’t really  _ need _ to ask. You wonder when Mom had the chance to talk to him about this before she left. “In that case, I would like to make a suggestion. You may, of course, disregard this, but I think it was a good idea for Miss Undyne to stay last night. For the foreseeable future, while you and Frisk guide your people to the surface, I think it would be best to make sure the both of you are  _ always _ accompanied by someone, such as a member of the Royal Guard.”

You’re expecting Undyne to protest, but she gives a curt nod. Standing straight-backed and alert, her expression serious, she actually looks like a guard that someone could rely on to protect them.

It’s Chara who voices an objection. “I would like to know why,” they say, folding their hands in their lap and smiling. “As you say, Frisk and I have taken care of ourselves just fine so far. Though we are inheriting earlier than expected, we’ve prepared for this our entire lives.” Their words are delicately selected, formal and reserved, a careful barrier between what they say and what they really feel. Still, it’s easy to see that they’re not pleased by the suggestion. “We’re already compromising by assembling a council; we don’t need to make ourselves look even less capable.”

Dad nods. “I can see what you mean. But, I believe it will have the opposite effect. It is not that you  _ need _ the support, but instead demonstrating that you  _ have _ it. You will show people that you are not acting alone, and you will be stronger for it.” He spreads his hands out in an encompassing gesture, as he goes on, “During this transition period, when many things are uncertain, it will reassure people to see other monsters backing you up. And I am sure Miss Undyne is happy to take up the task as part of her new guard duties, as she did last night.”

You can see Undyne trying not to preen, at the same time Chara chews their lip, not yet totally convinced of your dad’s reasoning. “I don’t like it,” they say. “We don’t need any help. We never have. And we certainly don’t need  _ babysitters_.”

You wait for your dad to reply, but instead, it’s Undyne who speaks next. “I agree with him,” she grumbles, crossing her arms. Chara looks up at her, and she shrugs, but the way she has trouble meeting their eyes betrays her attempts to act as though it’s no big deal. “It’s a pretty simple tactic. You want to look bigger to intimidate your opponents. Everyone underground knows you and Frisk are boss monsters, and you can take care of yourselves. But if this punk’s any indication, humans have no idea what that means.” She jerks her chin in your direction, letting everyone know just who ‘this punk’ is. Not that there was any doubt. “But everyone understands numbers. The more people you have backing you up, the less anyone’s gonna wanna mess with you!”

Dad smiles up at her, and she immediately throws an arm out to point at him, snarling. “Don’t think this means I trust you, human!”

“Of course not,” Dad shakes his head, holding up his hands. “You are the personal guard to your ruler. I would never expect it to be so easy to earn your trust.” Undyne huffs, placated for the moment, and Dad goes on. “I would appreciate it, however, if you did not call my son a ‘punk.’”

Your nose heats up, and you gape at Dad, but he’s still smiling that gentle dad smile at Undyne. She’s gaping, too, and even Chara’s eyes have gone a little wide. It’s usually Mom who uses that kind of hard, no-nonsense tone; when Dad does it, you’re always taken by surprise. 

“Whatever,” Undyne sputters, recovering her shock, and Dad’s smile goes a little wider.

“Well!” he says, standing up. “We still have about a half an hour until Tori gets back with everyone, and we have a big day ahead of us. Asriel, why don’t you go get dressed?”

You glance at Chara, but it’s clear you’re the last thing on their mind right now. Their arms are crossed, and their eyelids lowered, gaze unfocused, as they mull over your dad’s suggestion. Reluctantly, you head upstairs. 

The sleeping bag Undyne used is still on your floor, unrolled and unzipped. You frown as you step around it to get to your closet. Did she just not think to clean it up, or did she decide to leave her mess for you?

Or does she think she and Chara will be spending the night at your home again? It’s unlikely Chara will be able to find a new place to live right away, and personally, you don’t want to send them back to their home underground. 

You turn the idea over in your mind as you pull a shirt down from a hanger. It’s not like your house and their castle are the only two options. You know Undyne would be happy to have them stay at her home—in fact, you’re confident nearly any monster underground would eagerly host them. It’s not like you’re getting anything out of having them over, either—if movies are anything to go by, last night wasn’t anything like a sleepover with friends would be. So far, it’s just meant that you got to have dinner and breakfast with them, and then you slept on the sofa bed, instead of staying in your room with them and staying up late, exchanging secrets and having pillow fights and getting up to who knows what other kinds of mischief. Not to consider what might just be the biggest factor, that Mom and Dad might not want to have them over another night.

So, there’s no reason to assume they’ll keep staying at your house. There are plenty of other options that make just as much sense, if not more.

Maybe, once everything is settled, they’ll have a new castle built for themself, up on the mountain—or, anywhere in the world. They’re not trapped underground, now. They don’t have to stick around in this little town that barely qualifies as a city, and why would they want to? If they’re a ruler of their own kingdom, maybe it would make more sense for them to live in a big city, a state capital, maybe even somewhere like Washington, DC. 

You realize you’ve been standing with one leg in your pants and one leg out for the past couple minutes, lost in thought. You quickly finish getting dressed and rush back downstairs. It’s not like you don’t think you can leave Chara and Undyne on their own, it’s just… you don’t really want to.

When you return to the living room, both Chara and Undyne are staring out the window into the backyard. Chara's got their nose pressed against the glass, and their breath fogs it up when they exhale; you bring a hand up to hide your smile. 

“What's with all that sissy hand waving?” Undyne asks, smirking unkindly.

Perplexed, you make your way to peer outside as well. As soon as you see what’s caught their attention, tingling heat spreads through your nose, and your shoulders tense. 

You know, even as you open your mouth, that you’re reacting in futile anger, that whatever you’re about to yell at Undyne isn’t going to solve any problems. But her voice, her sneer, her raised eyebrow—you know that yelling back at your classmates never made them tease you less, but just like at school, you can’t stand it.

You can’t stand that she’s talking like that about your  _ dad. _

“It’s not sissy hand waving!” you yell, your fingers curled into fists at your sides. You barely stop yourself from stomping a foot in anger. “It’s Tai Chi! And Dad’s really good!”

Outside, Dad continues to move slowly through the forms, oblivious to the way Undyne laughs in your face. You cringe as she mocks you, “Really good at  _ what_? Weird dancing?”

Next to her, Chara’s stopped looking out the window. They’re watching you with a closed expression, and you should quit letting Undyne bait you, but she doesn’t know what she’s talking about! “It’s a martial art!” you all but shout up at her. “Dad placed in the international championship once!” She snorts, dismissive, as though Dad’s skills and achievements mean nothing, and you tighten your clenched fists. You want to wipe that grin off her face. “I bet he could kick your—”

“Asriel.”

Dad’s voice is mild and low, and you hang your head in shame, your shoulders dropping. He steps inside, shutting the door behind him. 

“There’s no need for raised voices,” he reprimands you gently, and you mumble an apology. “Now. What’s everyone getting upset about?”

“The squirt here seems to think you could beat me in a fight,” Undyne grins. Instead of being offended, she seems amused and—excited? “You wanna go? I’ll take you on!”

Dad raises his eyebrows at her, then looks at you. You mutter another, “Sorry,” looking away. He shakes his head, and turns back to Undyne.

“Come on, human,” she goads. Heat rushes through your face again, but you don’t let yourself open your mouth and blurt out something else stupid. Now that you can see Undyne standing next to your dad, you notice how she doesn’t have to look up or down to meet his gaze—they’re basically the same height, maybe half an inch of difference one way or the other. She leans in uncomfortably close, her grin wide and toothy and yellow. “You up to the challenge?”

“Miss Undyne,” Dad starts, and Undyne’s grin is wiped away in an instant. You’d wanted to see her face fall like that, but now that it’s happened from Dad doing no more than saying her name, it’s not as satisfying as you’d expected.

“Quit calling me that!” she snarls, throwing a hand out in a violent gesture. “You and your goody-goody wife and your whiny kid, you think you’re soooo great, helping the poor, lost monsters find their way back into the world! You think we’ll just go along with whatever you ‘suggest,’ because you just want to help out of the kindness of your hearts! Well guess what!” She takes another step closer to your dad, who remains standing at the door, meeting her glare with an unimpressed frown. “I know what humans are like. I actually  _ listened _ to the old Captain of the Guard.” Chara goes very, very still, as Undyne continues in a low voice. “You think you can get Chara and Frisk to trust you, and then you’ll be able to tell them what to do. But I’m not gonna just stand around and let you do whatever you want.”

Her lips are pulled back over her teeth in an aggressive grin, as she waits for your dad’s response. When he simply shakes his head and says, “I’m sorry to hear you feel that way,” his deep voice is soft in a striking contrast to Undyne’s snarling. 

Her eye goes wide with anger, and then narrows. “Is that all you have to say!?” she demands, stepping back, incredulous. “I just insulted you and your entire family!  _ Fight me, _ human!”

“Fighting in anger won’t solve anything,” Dad replies. Undyne lets out an enraged yell, and Dad only raises his eyebrows, waiting for her to finish. Once she’s done, he goes on. “However. If you can calm down, I’d be happy to have a friendly spar to settle your nerves.”

“I’m not nervous!” Undyne shouts.

At the same time, you rush forward. “Dad, no!” You grab his shirt, and he looks down at you, actually startled. “She’s got magic—she makes these spears, and—”

“Hah! Guess you’re not so sure he’ll beat me, after all!” Undyne crows, her attention once more fixed on you. You go tense, and then relax almost as quickly when Dad puts a hand on your shoulder. 

“Don’t worry, Asriel,” says Dad, smiling benignly. “I am only proposing a practice match. We’re not going to hurt each other.” He turns that politician’s smile to her, adding, “I am sure that someone skilled enough to be Vice-Captain of the Royal Guard knows how to control her own strength, magic or no.” 

“Great! Let’s go!” Undyne nearly pushes you both out the door in her eagerness to get started. As soon as you stumble outside, the chill autumn air bites right through your pajama top, and your socks do nothing to protect your feet from the cold concrete of the patio under you. You shiver, as Dad and Undyne walk past you out onto the grass. 

You shift your weight from foot to foot, as Dad takes slow and leisurely steps out into the yard. Undyne rushes out past him, coming to a stop once she feels like there’s enough distance between them, nearly bouncing in her impatience as she waits for Dad to catch up. 

“What are the conditions to win?” Dad asks, turning to face the guardswoman. 

She snarls, impatient, “I don’t care! Whoever gets knocked down first!”

He nods and brings his hands up, fist and open palm together in courtesy toward her, before falling easily into a ready stance. From watching Dad practice in the mornings, and from his few failed attempts to teach you, you know that position, with most of his weight on his back foot and his arms raised. Undyne holds a hand out, and magic shimmers into the shape of a spear under her palm. Dad’s face doesn’t change, and you wonder if Undyne’s disappointed in his lack of reaction to his first time seeing magic, if she was expecting him to tremble fearfully like you had. You turn to ask Chara, and you jump, realizing they’re not beside you. Spinning around, you spot them still inside, looking out the window at the three of you. 

Maybe it’s because of the reflections on the glass, but you can’t make out their expression.

“Asriel,” Dad calls, and you jump, turning to face him and Undyne. “We’ll begin on your signal.”

Your skin is cold and bumpy, but your face and ears are hot with nerves. You nod, to show that you’ve heard, and Dad focuses all his attention on Undyne. She’s waiting, too, leaning forward, teeth bared, so much energy in reserve that you think she might burst if you wait too long. You consider it, for a moment, but—Dad’s giving Undyne his full attention. He’s the one who suggested they spar, and he knows what he’s doing. You have to swallow, your throat gone rough like stone, but you manage to call out, “Go!”

Undyne flies forward, and Dad moves smoothly to meet her, and before she knows what’s happened she’s been neatly diverted around him, running several yards before she’s able to overcome her own momentum and spin around. “What the heck!” she shouts, shifting her grip on her spear. You expect her to charge forward again, but apparently Undyne’s not so foolish as to repeat an attempt that’s just failed. Instead she throws her empty hand skyward, and three additional spears materialize above her spread fingers. Her mouth open in a fierce grin, she flings her hand forward, and all three spears fly toward your dad.

You shriek, bringing your hands up to cover your shut eyes, but when Undyne’s frustrated scream of, “Ngaaaaaah!” echoes across the yard, you part your fingers just enough to peek through. All three spears are stuck in the earth around your dad, still quivering with the force with which they were thrown. 

Dad gives her a moment to vent her frustrations, and then he’s darting forward, flowing gracefully through a form you’ve only ever seen practiced in slow, careful steps before now. Undyne’s eye goes wide before she has to either move or take a hit, and she blocks three punches before throwing one of her own—only for dad to easily catch her arm and send her stumbling harmlessly off to the side. 

“What are you doing!” she yells, whipping around to send more spears flying at him. This time, though your fingers are still splayed across your face, you watch as Dad steps between the magical attacks as casually as strolling down the street. The last spear comes at him dead on, and he raises an arm to deflect the spear as he would a punch or a kick.

You scream into your palms as Dad grunts, stumbling backward. The projectile vanishes the moment it touches his arm, but the pained grimace on his face remains, as he shakes out his hand. 

There’s no mark on his arm—no bruise or burn or cut you can see, but this doesn’t calm your heartbeat or dry the tears forming at the corners of your eyes.

“Take that, human!” Undyne gloats. “You’re not that tough!”

Your dad nods, falling into a ready stance again. He flexes his fingers, and you remember what it felt like to touch the barrier, that barb-wire shock racing under your skin. You wonder if Undyne’s spears are the same. “That was a good hit,” Dad tells her. “Your magic is nothing to sneeze at!”

She growls at the genuine compliment, and lunges forward once more.

In the next moment, she’s lying flat on her back in the grass, several feet away from your dad.

“What,” she says, between heavy breaths so deep you can see her torso move from where you are, all the way across the yard, “just happened?”

Dad goes to stand next to Undyne, leaning over to smile down at her. For a moment you imagine her leaping up at him, a vicious slash upward, a snarl, unable to accept her loss—but she just blinks her single eye as Dad's shadow falls over her. “Do you feel better now?” he asks, reaching his hand out to her. 

She narrows her eye at him, but for once, she's not grinning or glaring. Dad waits patiently, his arm extended—you're reminded, perhaps unfairly, of someone trying to make themself unthreatening so they can approach a wild animal. 

“How do you think I feel?” she grumbles, reaching up to grab his hand. Her fingers close around his wrist, as he does the same, and he pulls her up as she rolls to her feet in tandem. Once she’s standing, she takes her hand back, brushing off her borrowed clothes and laughing mirthlessly. “I’m supposed to be Vice-Captain of the Royal Guard, and you just beat me like it was nothing!”

“Don’t be so hard on yourself. You are very skilled!” Dad says, smiling hugely. “I have not had the chance to spar with someone like that in a long time.”

“Ugh! I don’t need to listen to this!” Undyne spins on her heel, stomping toward the house. You scurry out of her way as she marches past you.

“Excuse me,” Dad calls out to her before she quite makes it back inside, and Undyne stops, her hand on the door. There’s no taunt in your dad’s voice, nothing but patience and sincerity, when he asks, “Would you like to know how to beat me?”

She clenches her fist, her head dropping as her eye squeezes shut. “I get it!” she yells, whirling around, teeth snapping around each word. “I lost, okay! You don’t have to keep rubbing it in!”

The rage falls from her face, then, as she catches sight of Dad’s expression. His eyebrows are raised, his mouth slightly parted; he looks more pained now than he did when one of her spears actually hit him. Undyne recoils, backing up against the door, and drops her gaze.

“I hate this,” she grumbles. “You’re not supposed to be  _ nice _ or  _ compassionate_. You’re supposed to be violent and hateful. What kind of humans  _ are _ you?”

Dad shakes his head, slowly making his way onto the patio, but Undyne seems to be temporarily out of fuel—you wouldn’t say that she’s calm as she waits for him to walk over, but the fury’s bled out of her. “Humans come in all kinds,” he says, once he’s standing next to you, leaving Undyne some room to breathe. “I would be lying if I said that nobody will meet those expectations you have, but not everyone is like that. There are good people, too.”

Undyne looks at your dad, and even though her stare’s not focused on you, you start to fidget the longer she holds it, unblinking as she studies him. Dad endures the silent examination patiently, and you don’t know what it is that makes Undyne finally shake her head and turn to open the door. She looks back at your dad over her shoulder, as she says, “I’ll think about it.”

She closes the door behind her, and you look up at Dad. He’s still smiling, and how can he brush off the things she says so easily? It’s not even that he’s ignoring her, the way teachers sometimes tell you to ignore bullies (and that never works, either). He responds to her, he obviously cares about what she has to say, he listens to her, and yet nothing she says gets under his skin the way it does to you. 

“I hate how she does that,” you grumble, although your voice winds up rising up into a whine against your will. “She doesn’t know anything about you!”

“No,” Dad agrees, putting a hand on your shoulder. “And I would be lying if I said it did not bother me.” He’s still looking toward the house, watching through the window as Undyne leaves the living room. When you can no longer see her through the glass, he looks down at you with a patient smile. “But, we have to try to understand her point of view. It’s true that she doesn’t know me, but she does know that humans were cruel to monsters in the past. When someone’s been bit by a dog, we don’t judge them for being afraid of other dogs.”

It takes you a second to realize that the dogs in his metaphor are humans, not monsters.

You don’t have much time to ponder that, though, as Undyne throws the door open, yelling, “Chara’s gone!”

You and Dad rush back inside, and Dad grabs his cell phone to text Mom, while you run down the hall calling their name. You throw the front door open, but you don’t see Chara when you look up and down your street, and no white-furred form emerges when you shout for them. 

“Check upstairs,” Dad says, before you decide to run down the street in your pajamas and calling their name, and you almost slam the door in your haste to shut it. You run up the stairs even as Undyne yells that she’s already looked up there. You check your room first, but there’s nobody sitting at your desk or in your bed. Mom and Dad’s room is also empty, and the bathroom door is open. There’s nobody hiding in the tub behind the shower curtains. 

You’d run up the stairs, spurred on by panic, but now that you haven’t found them, your rush of energy drains out of you, leaving you panting for breath and your heart racing. You still try to hurry down the hall, but as you pass your room again on your way to the stairs, you stop.

You didn’t notice it before, but the door to your messy closet is closed. But when you’d finished hunting for a shirt earlier this morning, you’re pretty sure you left it open.

“Chara?” you call, stepping slowly and cautiously into your own room. You don’t hear anything, but you step over the sleeping bag on the floor and stop in front of the closed door. “Chara?” you ask again, fitting your fingers on the handle. 

If somehow they didn’t hear your loud breathing, they definitely would have heard you calling their name. It’s silly to think they’d be in your closet. But if they are in there, then it stands to reason they don’t want to be found, so obviously they wouldn’t answer. You look around, but nobody else has come upstairs, and you turn back to face the closed door. If they’re not in there, well, nobody else is in your room to see you talking to your empty closet. But if they are, then you can’t just stand around. You slowly ease the door open.

Your shadow falls over your own sweatpants, with white furred feet peeking out, and their toes curl as the door opens. Chara’s head is hidden under the hanging hems of long sleeved sweaters and button downs, their arms wrapped around their legs. 

“Chara?” you repeat uselessly.

You can see their arms tighten around their legs, their fingers curl that much more where they grip their upper arms, pulling at the fabric of your overlarge t-shirt. “I’m sorry,” they whimper into their knees. 

You stare helplessly for several seconds, before you hear Undyne’s voice yelling for them again, and you jump, reminded that your dad and Undyne are still looking. “Hang on,” you mumble. You hesitate, but close the closet door halfway, leaving a few inches open, before you hurry back to the top of the stairs. “I found them!” you yell down, and Undyne and your dad appear at the foot of the stairs almost instantaneously.

“Where are they!?” Undyne demands, already starting to climb the stairs, but your dad stops her with a hand on her shoulder. She glowers at him, but relents and stays where she is, still grumbling, “I checked every room!”

You look over your shoulder, unsure if you should give them away—clearly they didn’t come out for anyone calling for them for a reason. Obviously, if they hid in your closet, they didn’t want to be around anybody. But it’s probably better that Dad and Undyne don’t keep running around looking for them, and if you don’t at least tell them  _ something_, they might not accept that you really found Chara. “They, um. They were in my room,” you admit, and you can see every single one of Undyne’s grit teeth.

“Let’s give them a moment,” Dad says, exerting gentle pressure to coax Undyne back down the few steps she’d already climbed. “When Tori gets back, we’ll have to get moving, but they can take a little break until then.”

Undyne rolls her shoulder to dislodge Dad’s hand, but she doesn’t shout any other objections. She crosses her arms and huffs out a, “Fine,” and angrily makes her way to the living room. Dad smiles up at you before following her, and you’re free to go back to your room.

You return, and there’s no boss monster standing in the middle of the floor or sitting in your chair or on your bed, and the door to your closet is as you left it. You cross the room slowly and ease the door open again, and they haven’t moved. At a loss, you drop down to sit in front of them. Between their knees and your hanging clothes, you still can’t see their face, but they haven’t told you to leave them alone, so you guess that’s something.

“Are you okay?” you ask, and then want to kick yourself. They just hid in your closet. That’s not a thing that people do when they’re okay, you think. Probably. You press your lips together, then choose a different question. “What happened?”

“It’s stupid,” they grumble. There’s clear irritation in their voice when they growl out, “I’ll be fine. I didn’t mean to make you worry.”

Your fingers curl in the carpet on the floor, and you try to figure out what to say. Even though you know it’s a useless platitude, you offer, “It’s okay.”

“It’s not!” they cry, muffled. They’re rocking a little, as they yell into their knees, “It’s stupid! I shouldn’t  _ be _ like this! I’m going to be representing my whole kingdom to humans today and instead of getting ready I’m hiding in your closet because I got scared of my own guard!”

“You—you what?”

The giggle, voice scratchy and high pitched. Boggled, you try to make sense of what they’ve just said. Sure, Undyne frightens you more often than not, and you tense up nearly every time she looks at you, but—”I thought you  _ liked _ Undyne?” you blurt.

“I  _ do,_” they whine. “I do! I trust her.” Their shoulders shake, and you hear them sniff, heavy and thick. “It’s stupid, it’s the same dumb reason I couldn’t deal with her trying to teach me to fight, I’m just—”

They go still, then, abruptly frozen, and, very deliberately, they breathe out. They slowly inhale, and their breath echoes loudly when they next exhale into their knees. 

“Undyne’s always wanted to be Captain of the Royal Guard,” they whisper. In contrast to their rapid panic of a moment ago, they now speak slowly, carefully. “She used to look up to my mom. She—” their voice and breath both stop, as they swallow, and then you can hear them take another shaky breath. “Undyne wanted to be just like her.”

Oh.

“Undyne—doesn’t know what happened, does she,” you stammer. “To your parents.”

The clothes hanging over their head shift, and you think maybe Chara’s shaking their head.

“You and Frisk are the only ones I’ve ever told,” they whisper.

You don’t think it’s stupid at all, for them to be scared or upset, but before you can say so, the two of you hear voices coming from downstairs—not your Dad’s big, deep voice, nor Undyne’s confident shouting, but instead you can distinguish Papyrus and Mettaton loudly exclaiming over one thing or another. Chara jolts, and then you have to quickly scramble out of the way as they all but surge out of your closet and to their feet. You’re much less graceful when you push yourself up. Chara passes a hand over their face, and there’s a flash of gold under their palm; when they lower their hand, the fur on their cheeks is completely dry. You only notice, you think, because you were specifically looking for wet trails. 

They spin to face you, beaming. “Let’s get going!” they chirp, reaching out to grab your hand. “It’s like your dad said, we’ve got a big day ahead of us!” Flummoxed, you stumble after them as they lead the way downstairs. 

The moment you reach the first floor, Mettaton swoops over, and Chara’s immediately caught up in a whirlwind of preparations. Mettaton’s brought a new robe for them, which they dutifully accept; he also produces their cell phone, which they are very happy to receive. 

Before they retreat to get changed, Frisk hands them a little tote bag. “Spare clothes,” they mumble, as Chara accepts the bag. “Went through your room. Sorry.” 

(Frisk is already wearing a different garment from yesterday, this one pale shades of blue with white trim and embroidery. From what you can see, it matches the gentle pastel green of the one Chara’s holding now.) 

Chara peeks into the tote, and then gives Frisk a small smile. “It’s okay. Better you than someone else.” They head back upstairs, but stop halfway up, and look over their shoulder. “Thanks,” they call quietly down. Frisk nods, and Chara resumes climbing the rest of the steps.

Dad’s dressed—he must have changed out of his pajamas when you were talking with Chara in your room—and he’s gone to speak quietly with Mom and Gerson. You think they didn’t really need to step aside or try to keep their voices low, when nobody can possibly hear them over Papyrus and Undyne. Sans is  _ already _ napping on the sofa, which makes you want to grind your teeth a little bit—why is he here  _ again_, today? You can kind of get why Alphys came, and everyone else’s involvement is obvious, but what’s Sans even contributing?

Frisk is still standing by the stairs. Since handing Chara’s clothes off, they haven’t moved. If they’re nervous about today, they’re not showing it; their face is inscrutable as always, and their posture is relaxed, not hunched or stiff. With their eyes squinted near shut as always, it’s impossible for you to tell who or what they could be looking at. Maybe their eyes  _ are _ actually shut, and they’re sleeping standing up.

They turn their face toward you just as you think that, and you jump, realizing you’ve been staring. You quickly jerk your head to the side, but they  _ definitely _ caught you at it. 

“Asriel! Just the human I was looking for!” Mettaton wheels in front of you, and you’re glad for the distraction. In your peripheral vision, you can see that Frisk is still looking at you, but they haven’t moved to approach, and you do your best to pretend that you’re giving Mettaton your full attention. “I already ran these by Toriel, but we’ve selected three photos from yesterday to distribute!”

It’s always weird for you when people refer to your parents by their first names—to you, they’re just Mom and Dad. You’re at least kind of used to hearing ‘Mayor Asgore Dreemurr,’ but hearing Mom’s name is always jarring. Mettaton withdraws his  _ own _ cell phone, and you’re so boggled by the thought of a robot using a phone that it takes you several seconds to realize what he’s showing you on the little screen. You recognize Chara almost before you recognize yourself next to them, and your nose heats up at seeing the pictures Mettaton’s chosen. 

It makes sense, of course. Showing things like you holding Chara’s hand, or hugging them, or laughing with them—those are all, obviously, better choices than whatever photos must have been taken of you sitting in awkward silence next to them. It shows that you’re comfortable with this monster, that they’re friendly, that they’re just like you, even though they look so different. Knowing that such candid photos of you are about to be released to the world, though—you thought you’d be fine with it, since you’re used to media attention, but these aren’t like posing for a publicity shot, or knowing there’s a camera fixed on you when you’re sitting with Mom while Dad makes speeches. These are  _ personal. _

But you don’t want to make Chara and Mettaton redo them. And they need to be candid like this, to really sell the leak as authentic. 

You narrow your eyes, peering closely at the screen, and Mettaton doesn’t object as you scroll back and forth through the three photos. You lift your head, and your eyes dart to Frisk by the stairs, before you turn back to the robot in front of you. Without a face, it’s hard to figure out where to focus when you look at him; you pick the middlemost screens, as you ask quietly, “Why isn’t Frisk in any of these?”

“It pains me, but the photos worked better if we cropped them out,” Mettaton replies, just as quiet. “They sat in the exact same position through the whole shoot. Any other time, I’d be grateful to have a model who’s able to hold a pose so long!” He twists his wrist so he can see the phone, and navigates through a few screens until he pulls up another set of photos. These, you think, must be the originals; there’s you in the center, with a boss monster on either side. Mettaton scrolls through, and you can see what he means—while you and Chara shift in your seats and move and twist to face each other, Frisk hardly budges. There, you can spot where they turned their head to tell you to hug Chara, but otherwise, they stay perfectly still, one hand in their lap, the other on the sofa a few inches from yours, until you move to hug Chara. 

Mettaton continues, dolefully, “But it made them look so _ lifeless_ , like a doll. If we want to avoid people thinking our appearance is some kind of hoax, well…” He makes a tsk noise, yet another inexplicable sound coming from a monster who doesn’t have a tongue, as he clicks the phone’s screen off. “We’ll be sure that they’re in the next shots,” he promises, aiming for a reassuring tone. 

He doesn’t need to waste his time trying to reassure you, though. You don’t mind that it’s only Chara in the shots with you. And it’s not like Frisk will care—they don’t care about anything else, so why would something like this bother them? Besides, these photos aren’t meant to be about the two royal heirs. It could have been any monsters. 

Yeah. It’s fine this way. 

You hear Chara thumping down the stairs, their paws landing heavy on the carpeted steps; when they get to the landing, their claws click on the wood floor. “Right on time, your highness!” Mettaton trills, rotating on his wheel and rolling over to them.

“Majesty,” Frisk says, quiet. Their voice is still forceful enough to stop Mettaton in his tracks, and they raise their chin just so. “Queen and king gone. Not heirs anymore.”

Gerson looks over, withdrawing from the conversation with your parents. Chara, too, is staring at Frisk, clearly taken aback, and slowly the other voices in the hall die down, everyone else’s conversations coming to a stop. Realizing they’ve become the focus of everyone’s attention, Chara recovers quickly, nodding. “Frisk is right,” they say, and Frisk drops their head back down as Chara takes over. “We might be ruling with the aid of a council, but we  _ are _ taking the throne. ‘Your highness’ is no longer the correct form of address.”

Papyrus is the first to break the silence that’s fallen. “Absolutely! Your majesties!” he exclaims, exuberant as always. “Prepare to be thoroughly supported! In all your royal endeavors! You’re going to be the best monarchs!” 

Chara’s nose goes a little redder than normal, and they, like Frisk, duck their head. “You don’t have to call us that all the time,” they mumble. “But in front of the humans, it’s probably…” They trail off, uncertain.

“In front of the humans, we want to strongly establish that you are unquestionably our rulers,” Gerson picks up, stroking his beard. “We’ll have enough to deal with already, without presenting an uncertain chain of command! Wa ha ha!”

Chara smiles gratefully at the guard captain, and Gerson grins wide, as if he’s entertained by the day’s proceedings, and not at all worried. 

“Now, then, time’s a-wastin!” Gerson nods over at Mettaton. “Better finish up before we have to head out!”

“Right! Come on, your majesties, let’s get this show on the road!” Mettaton ushers both boss monsters to the living room, and when you observe that everyone else is resuming their conversations, you trot after them. Sans has disappeared to who knows where, leaving the living room empty, and Mettaton gently pushes Frisk and Chara both to sit on the sofa. He immediately sets to fixing Chara’s fringe with a brush you’re certain he wasn’t carrying a moment ago. “Honestly, what would you do without me?” he’s tutting as he works. Chara’s smile is strained, but they patiently endure the fussing, as Mettaton neatens their fur and even runs the brush over their ears. When he’s done, you’re surprised at the difference it’s made. You already thought of Chara as well-kempt, especially compared to Frisk, but their fur looks even softer and smoother after Mettaton’s through. 

You kind of want to pet them, but you know, without needing to ask, that it would be horribly rude.

Next, Mettaton rotates on his stand to face Frisk. He doesn’t make a move right away, and you can only assume he’s studying them. You think their fur might be even more of a mess than it was when you saw them yesterday. The tips of their ears look especially ragged. You wonder for a moment if boss monsters shower, or if like cats, they groom themselves. Maybe they take dust baths like chinchillas? 

“Hold still, now, darling,” Mettaton requests, bringing the brush in. Frisk doesn’t so much as flinch as Mettaton begins to work on their fringe. He keeps up commentary as he goes, “Please, promise me that if you ever grow a mane, you’ll take better care of it? Your fur is so thick, you really do need to put more time into it.” Frisk makes a noncommittal noise, and Mettaton sighs, despite his lack of lungs. “And your ears,” he says, “you really have to stop tugging on them all the…”

He trails off, his hand stopping in midair where he was reaching for one of their long ears. Frisk flinches, their entire body trembling with the motion.

“Frisk,” Mettaton starts, reaching forward again, and before he can get another word out, Frisk’s hand shoots up, grabbing Mettaton’s arm. Your breath catches when you realize the creaking you can hear is coming from the metal giving way under Frisk’s fingers.

You actually manage to get your voice working, but your brain hasn’t caught up yet, and you wind up stammering out nonsense, “Let him, don’t,  _ stop_!” Frisk doesn’t pay you any mind—they don’t release Mettaton’s arm, and the robot’s screens are flashing red. 

Chara’s strangled laughter cuts through the room, as they stumble to their feet, rapidly backpedaling away from Frisk. The moment the first bark of laughter leaves their lips, Frisk’s fist opens, and Mettaton goes wheeling back, shaking out his arm. Chara continues to rasp out pained giggles, all three of you having backed away to give a wide berth to the boss monster on the sofa, and Frisk slowly lowers their hand. You can hear, behind you, the sounds of other monsters or your parents approaching, but you can’t bring yourself to look away from Frisk to see who’s shown up to figure out what your shouting and Chara’s laughter was all about.

“I’m sorry,” Frisk whispers. “I’m sorry. I won’t do it again.” Their whispers are hollow—not only voiceless, but lacking any kind of intonation, flat repetitions. Their face doesn’t change as they apologize over and over again. “Sorry. Won’t. Won’t get angry. Won’t hurt anyone. Sorry. I’m sorry. Won’t do it again.”

More laughter bursts from Chara, as they nearly shriek, “I’ll believe that when I see it!” Frisk shrinks in on themself, still whispering apologies. 

“What’s happened?” That’s Mom’s voice, and she walks into the living room, taking in the sight of Frisk hunched on the sofa and the three of you standing a distance away. 

Another burst of giggles bubbles out of Chara, and they shake their head. Their nose is bright, bright red. Mom looks at you, waiting for an explanation, and you helplessly meet her gaze. How do you explain this, with Frisk and Chara right here?

“I messed up,” Frisk says, a little louder than a whisper. “Won’t happen again.”

Mom looks at a point somewhere above you, and seconds later, Dad comes over to kneel between you and Chara. He speaks lowly to them, while Mom goes and sits next to Frisk on the couch. You take a step forward, a warning for her to be careful stuck in your throat, as Mom asks if it’s okay to touch them. They nod, wordless, and Mom lightly sets her fingers on their shoulder, rubbing little circles with her thumb as she quietly asks them to explain what they mean. 

There’s a gentle pressure on your own shoulder, and you turn to see Dad getting your attention. “Asriel,” he says. “Can you and Chara tell me what happened?”

You look past him to Chara, and they bite their lip and shake their head. Whether they mean that they can’t answer him, or they don’t want you to, you’re not sure.

“Doesn’t matter,” you hear Frisk’s raised voice. “Won’t happen again!” They slip out from under your Mom’s hand and rise to their feet. “I’m sorry. I’ll be better. Won’t do it again.”

Mom and Dad exchange a look, and then Mom stands as well. “If it has upset you, then it does matter,” she says. “If you are not comfortable talking to me, I understand, but Asgore and I want to help you. We will listen if you need to talk about it.”

Dad repeats the same promise to Chara, and they nod, their smile small and tight. He gives your shoulder a squeeze as he stands. “You too, Asriel,” he says. “Tori and I are worried we haven’t made that clear enough, lately. You can always talk to us about anything.”

“I know, Dad,” you say, remembering to smile. 

It’s not a lie. You know he means it. If it happens to imply that you  _ will _ talk to him and Mom about your problems, well… you haven’t said anything that’s not true. You’ve just let him think what he wants.

“Well. We should get going in a couple minutes,” says Dad, looking around at everyone. “Are we all set?”

“Nah,” comes a rolling, deep voice from right next to you. You yelp, grabbing on to Dad’s arm; Sans was  _ not _ in the living room ten seconds ago, you are absolutely certain. The skeleton has the audacity to wink at you, before he steps forward. “Got one last thing for their majesties.”

From somewhere in his hoodie, Sans withdraws a bundle of thick, soft velvet. He sets the fabric on the coffee table, and begins to unfold it.

“Found these last night,” he comments casually, but his bony hands are slow and careful as he pulls aside the velvet. “Looks like the king and queen set ‘em aside for a special occasion.”

Chara sucks in a sharp breath, and Frisk’s voice throws a startled syllable out of their throat, though if it was meant to be a full word, the rest of it gets lost on the way. Sans finishes unfolding the fabric bundle, and your jaw drops.

It’s not as though you didn’t  _ know _ they were royalty. But just like that first time you heard Papyrus call them ‘your highnesses,’ it hits you. The elegant bands of gold and silver laid out on your coffee table are almost more circlets than crowns, adorned with diamonds that glitter in the curved pattern of the Delta Rune, delicately worked into the centerpiece of each. You stare, awed; you’re not the only one stunned into silence, gaze transfixed on the twin crowns.

“Sans!” Papyrus yells, breaking the spell. “You can’t just suddenly hand their majesties a pair of crowns! There are ceremonies for these kinds of things! Rituals! Coronations!”

Sans shrugs. There’s amusement in his voice when he replies, “They’re the ones who wanted to be called ‘your majesty’ today.” 

Frisk steps forward as if in a daze. They reach a hand out, steadying themself against the coffee table, and you think you see a glimmer of reflected light between their eyelids. Chara, too, slowly approaches, unable to look anywhere else or at anything but at the two crowns.

“Guess there’s no question about it,” they say, reaching slowly to the crowns. They don’t finish the motion, pulling their hand back, their fingers curling as they retreat. “The king and queen really did mean for us to rule together.”

They raise their eyes to meet Frisk’s gaze. Frisk nods, and Chara straightens, steadying themself. 

You can’t say a word—it’s not simply that you have nothing to contribute, or that you’re still stunned into silence, but there’s a strangely heavy air in the room. It feels like even coughing or sneezing would be inappropriate. Nobody else makes a sound, as Frisk and Chara each carefully pick up a crown, and turn to face each other.

“Together,” Chara repeats, and Frisk bows their head. Chara’s slow and cautious as they move to set the crown atop the other monster’s head. You think you see their hands trembling; you  _ know _ you see Frisk flinch when the metal first settles against their fur. The smooth bands of gold and silver fit neatly around Frisk’s small horns, and when Chara takes their hands away and Frisk straightens, the crown sits securely where they’ve left it.

“Nobody I’d rather have at my side more than you,” Frisk whispers, as Chara lowers their head. It’s like you’re watching a repeat recording through a warped mirror, as a shiver passes through Chara, and Frisk gingerly slides their crown into place. 

Chara lifts their head, and they and Frisk regard each other. Standing so close, face to face, in identical crowns and matching robes, you can’t help but note all the little differences and similarities between the two of them. The off-white shades of their fur, the different angles of their just-growing horns, Chara’s alert eyes and Frisk’s inscrutable squint…

…. the matching scars on their cheeks.

Chara reaches forward, loosely taking Frisk’s hand in their own. They smile, slowly, as if testing out the expression for the first time. “Let’s go, partner.”

Frisk’s expression doesn’t change as they nod.

  
  
  


You wind up having to take two cars to City Hall, unable to fit everyone in the van. Chara opts to ride with Dad, which means Undyne takes that car too, and somehow you get dragged along. Frisk and Papyrus go with your mom, and everyone else divvies up. You end up in the back seat, squished in with Alphys and Undyne—nobody had the heart to deny Chara the front passenger seat. 

You’d been worried about driving with everyone through the city—what if people saw the monsters through the car windows? But Mettaton had waved off your concerns, with a casual “Then they might help with spreading the word for us!”

So you try not to get too anxious when Chara presses their nose against the window and stares, awed, at the buildings and cars and people going by. 

There’s basement parking at City Hall, and from there, you can take an elevator to Dad’s office, so you don’t have to worry about being accosted on the street, at least. You’re quite the procession going down the hall, your parents and eight monsters and you. Dad’s arranged for the chief of police and city councilors to come to his office, though he’ll actually be meeting them by the elevators so he can prepare them a little for what they’re about to see. He invites everyone to make themselves at home in his office, then leaves to wait for the first arrival, and everyone has a few moments to either calm their nerves or grow even more anxious before your dad returns. Chara’s chewing their lip and shifting their weight from foot to foot. Frisk is stock-still; you think even Mettaton, a literal robot who doesn’t even need to breathe, might be moving more than they are.

You’ve met the chief of police before, and you’re not really fond of him (though there are a couple of officers that you don’t mind too much). When he opens the door to your dad’s office, in the middle of impatiently asking why he’s been called in today, it’s somewhat satisfying to see his eyes go wide and his mouth drop. 

Chara doesn’t give the man a moment to recover, pushing the advantage of surprise, and while you’ve seen them take command before, it’s still something to watch. You'd never guess how nervous they were moments before, to see them now. Frisk, at their side, lets Chara take the lead, but they’re not silent, adding quiet but forceful interjections when needed. Your dad provides cheerful support, and between the three of them, the chief of police never had a chance. Bewildered, and probably before he realizes what’s happened, he’s agreeing to call a meeting with his officers and offer the monsters whatever support he can in peacefully integrating them with the city's human population.

Dad has the police chief stay through the arrival of the city councilors, as another familiar face to help ground people through a revelation that basically changes everything they know about the world. But it’s hard for anyone to hold on to their disbelief when the evidence is staring them right in the face, and the moment Papyrus makes a comment, you can practically see the councilors’ fear vanish.

You've been exposed to politics through Dad's career for basically as long as you can remember, so it's not hard for you to follow the discussions that start up, once the councilors adjust to the idea of monsters existing. A lot that’s said is reiterating what's already been talked about in your living room, but now further steps can be taken in arranging meetings with the next level of government officials and setting the framework for monsters to, essentially, immigrate. The question of citizenship is raised, but Frisk is quick to insist that theirs is a sovereign country; if it's determined that Ebott’s location in the USA will give monsters American citizenships, it will be in addition to, not in place of, their standing as citizens of the monster kingdom. The Royal Guard will continue to operate independently, though certainly in cooperation with human police forces. 

You have to wonder if Frisk consulted with Chara about this previously, or if someone like Gerson coached them. It's certainly more words and longer sentences than you're used to hearing from Frisk. Whether or not they'd known beforehand, though, Chara and Gerson appear to be in full agreement. The police chief is a little more reluctant, but he doesn't raise any objections. It's like your mom and dad and even Undyne have said—the unwavering support and unified front that the monsters present go a long way in making a strong impression. 

All in all, you think things are going rather well. You hadn’t exactly had the time to imagine a lot of outcomes for this meeting, but your brain had still managed to come up with a few awful potential scenarios, and you’re rather grateful none of them have come to pass. Eventually, though, your mom has to interrupt, reminding everyone of the royal address Frisk and Chara have scheduled to catch their own people up on everything. 

The councilors and police chief are still in a slight state of shock as Dad walks them out, telling them to look out for the leaked photos (which are going out in a tabloid magazine, but will doubtless be all over the internet by the time you have dinner, probably). You hear him mention that you’re in the photos, and you hasten to stand straight under the critical eyes of the councilors and police chief before the door shuts behind them. You can’t help but wonder if they’d been curious as to your presence—or, if they’d even noticed you at all.

Actually, now that you’re thinking about it, you're not really sure why you're here. You're not going to accept the position of Royal Ambassador, so you don't really need to be present for any of this, do you? It would be enough, you think, for your parents to explain that you helped the monsters back to the surface. You might want to support Chara and Frisk, but you’re not adding anything by being here. 

You don't voice these thoughts. It'd be an inconvenience to everyone if you asked to be dropped off at home on the way to Mt. Ebott. At least when Frisk and Chara give their address underground, some monsters might recognize you. That will probably help a little bit, right?

You’re about to find out, at any rate.

Mom and Dad park as close to Mt. Ebott as they can, but you still have a bit of a hike up the actual mountain. For all that you walked with Chara and Frisk through nearly their entire kingdom, and known who they really were for half of it, it still strikes you as odd, for royalty to trek up the rough mountain path with you. Maybe it’s that their crowns and fine robes keep drawing your attention, but they’re about to give a speech to their citizens—their first address as the actual rulers of their kingdom, not just the heirs. Yet they’re walking up the dirt trail next to you and your parents, same as everyone else.

Your breathing starts to pick up as you approach the yawning cave mouth that marks the entrance to the underground. At first you think you're simply out of breath from the climb, but your heartbeat doesn't calm, and the back of your neck feels chilly, cold frost crawling both on the gooseflesh surface of your skin and through the veins underneath it. It's been at least a couple hours since you've eaten, now, but your stomach feels tight, and your throat clenches as though forcing down something unpleasant. 

At least the castle is close to where the barrier used to be; you won't have too far to go. 

Frisk is next to you, then. You hadn’t noticed their approach, but now they’re so close that their fingers brush against yours. At this small distance, you see the flutter of their eyelashes as their eyes move to pin their gaze on you. 

“I won't,” they promise, a whisper just for you. “Won't hurt anyone anymore.”

“G-Good!” you hiss, jerking your arm away. They leave their hand hanging at their side, as though you haven't just been completely awful. You breathe through your teeth, letting your shoulders relax, but you don't move to shorten the gap you've put between the two of you. Frisk doesn't either.

The thought that you should apologize to them occurs to you, but they haven’t offered one to you, still. 

They’re probably not even offended. You shouldn’t worry about it.

Your heart still thumps so hard and fast it's almost painful, as the procession of humans and monsters travels through the throne room. You try to concentrate on Papyrus's voice, as he's taken it upon himself to give your parents a sort of impromptu tour, but you still notice that someone's cleaned up the dust and shattered glass, and the ancient thrones have been pushed into a corner. There's an almost regretful air about the empty room—something lonely, as you walk past those unused thrones—and you're glad to leave it, even if it means you next walk into the golden corridor where you first met Sans. You move a little faster, and decide you don't care who sees you reach for your mom's hand. Her fingers wrap around yours, and you focus on walking forward.

You don't remember the next hallway, and you try not to think about why you can’t recall passing through here. Instead, you follow Chara and Frisk as they lead you all past a few closed doors and to a wide stairway. 

“This way leads to the balcony where we'll give the address,” Chara says, turning to face everyone. “You can see almost the entire capital from there.”

“People will already have started to gather,” Gerson adds. “I have the Canine Unit assigned to crowd control.”

Mettaton's rolled off to organize his camera crew—you overhear Alphys remarking to your parents how excited he is to broadcast news this big. A member of the Royal Guard who you didn't meet last time you were here trots up to report to Gerson, and Chara and Frisk withdraw to quietly discuss their speech—or at least, you assume that's why they're huddled close, so little distance between them that you half expect the ornate metalwork of their crowns to get caught on each other. 

“We're ready when you are!” Mettaton returns, clapping his hands together. “We're not broadcasting live, but we won't have time for edits, only emergency cut-offs.”

“That's fine,” says Chara. Frisk nods in agreement. They lift their head, then, and their gaze finds you. “Asriel,” they call, and you can’t very well pretend you weren’t looking at them. You trot over, and Chara looks at Frisk, before turning back to you.

“We’re going to tell everyone that the barrier is broken.” You knew that, but you don’t interrupt; they obviously have more to say. “We’re not going to admit everything—Sans was right, when he said nobody would accept us if they knew the truth.” You tighten your jaw around any objections you might want to make. From what you know of monsters, and how much they’ve clung to the prophecy for so long, you think they’d be convinced easily enough that the specifics of Chara and Frisk’s birth don’t actually matter. It’s definitely not your place to tell them to take that kind of risk, though. “But we need to show them we don’t want a war.” 

“Need to make them not want a war,” Frisk says. It’s almost a correction, with the emphasis they place on their words, but Chara only nods.

“I know we’ve asked a lot of you,” they say, their eyes searching your face. Despite the bright, sharp red of their irises, there’s something soft in their gaze. “But, will you come with us?”

“Don’t need to say anything,” Frisk hurries to add. “We’ll tell them.” One hand pulls at the ragged fur at the end of an ear again—you wonder if they even realize they’re making themself look even more of a mess, right before their address. “Just nee—just. Easier, if you’re with us.”

You can somewhat hear the milling of the crowd outside, that murmuring, quiet roar of many people gathered together. The line of Frisk’s jaw is tense, and their protruding fangs are pressed tight against their lower lip. Next to them, Chara’s cheeks are stiff around the grin that’s pushed itself onto their face. The diamonds in both their crowns glitter, light sparkling through the cut facets in time to their trembling.

“Okay,” you agree.

Chara’s shoulders drop as they exhale, and Frisk seems to notice that they’re tugging at their ear, slowly dropping their hand. 

“Thank you,” they say together.

  
  
  


When Frisk and Chara step out onto the castle balcony, the low rumble of the assembled monsters rises into a roar of cheers. Their hands are joined, though only you and their guards behind them can see, the balcony rail obscuring everything below the runes embroidered on the front of their robes. Behind Papyrus and Undyne, you know your parents are watching, apprehensive. They hadn’t liked it when you said you’d agreed to go out there with Frisk and Chara, you could tell—but they hadn’t stopped you, either.

“Greetings!” Chara’s voice echoes out, as they raise their free hand. The noise dies down, and Chara lowers their arm to rest their hand on the railing, looking out at their subjects. You look out over the crowd as well—you thought you’d met and seen a variety of monsters on your trip through the underground, through that snowy village and Mettaton’s resort, but you can see now that you hadn’t anywhere near a real understanding of how many different monsters lived under the mountain. There are reptilian monsters like Alphys and Gerson and Bratty, furred ones that resemble rabbits and cats and dogs, bird-like ones and fish-like ones, but there are also those who look like no living creature you’ve seen before, ones that look more like geometric shapes or inanimate objects, candles and planes and plants, even seashells and snowflakes. All those monsters have gathered here to listen to what Chara and Frisk have to say—and you know this is not even the entirety of their kingdom.

“Thank you for coming,” Frisk says. You didn’t see either of them use their magic, but someone must have, for Frisk’s voice to fill the cavern as it does. “We did not give much notice.” 

There’s a little swell of murmuring from the crowd, as Chara picks up where Frisk left off. “However, this announcement cannot wait. Many sudden changes have occurred over the past few days, and they will affect us all.”

Chara has to raise their arm again; as they lower it, the concerned voices also go down. 

“I know what you must be thinking,” they say. The calm of their voice washes over the buzzing murmur that remains, quelling it near completely. “The curse. The barrier. The prophecy.”

You’d expected, when they brought up the prophecy, to hear shouting, demands for an explanation, a chaotic cacophony. Instead, all eyes are on Chara and Frisk; the mouths that are open are silent, jaws dropped in awe and anticipation. It’s a frozen moment, time stopped as everyone draws breath, and so of course it can’t last.

“The curse was never broken,” Frisk says. It’s as though they’ve purposefully picked up a china plate and dropped it on a hardwood floor; the resulting frenetic roar is as predictable and alarming as porcelain shattering. Frisk’s voice bluntly barrels on, rolling right over the shocked monsters with the brute force of its magical enhancement. “The king and queen are dead.”

They and Chara let the wave of noise crest and recede naturally, though this means that you wait though a long duration of fearful and outraged shouting. You feel the urge to pull out your cell phone to check if it’s been an actual minute, or more, before remembering that you no longer have one. Once the din has died down to an acceptable level, Chara resumes speaking, and you wonder, abruptly, when they and Frisk were able to compose this speech. There was no time for them to practice, you know that for a fact, but regardless they trade off seamlessly, working together flawlessly. 

“We will hold their funeral in a week’s time—as well as our coronation.” Chara inhales, shoulders rising, and they go on. “Frisk and I will both inherit. We will share the crown, and lead you all to the surface together.”

You’re not surprised to hear the discontent murmuring and muttering continue in response to such news. If the prophecy was wrong—if the curse won after all—how can they talk so confidently about reaching the surface?

Chara looks over their shoulder to you, as does Frisk. Their hands slip apart, and they shift to make room for you to stand between them. It’s as clear a cue as any. You look out over the many, many monsters whose gazes are raised to the balcony—to Frisk and Chara—and, to you, as you shuffle forward, tentatively placing your hands on the cold stone rail. 

“The prophecy was wrong about the curse,” Chara says, turning out to face the gathered monsters again. “But it was not wrong about the rest. The path to freedom has been revealed.”

“ _We _ were wrong,” says Frisk. They swallow, and when they speak again, the bitterness is gone from their voice. “The child of hope, the child of dreams, and the child of love.  _ Three_, not  _ one_.”

The murmuring builds up, as the monsters look—really  _ look_—at you. You can only imagine they’re reciting the prophecy to themselves—and realizing just how clear it becomes, when there are actually three children. How easy it is to assume the wrong meaning, when there are only two. When Chara speaks, you ground yourself on their words. “Asriel appeared, and he was determined to return to the surface.”

The gathered monsters explode in demands and yells, unintelligible as all their voices crash into each other, and your brain catches up to the wording Chara used. ‘Return to.’ Not reach. 

That’s all it takes, and everyone knows exactly what you are.

Your hands are still on the rail, and the monsters who shout up at you are still below the balcony, out of reach. Frisk’s paw is next to your own on the rail, their pinkie brushing against yours, and Chara’s hand is on your back, their spread fingers little warm spots of contact, holding you in place like magnets. Yet you feel so much further away from everything, as though you’re watching it happen on TV, the dull roar of voices quieter than you know it really is, the volume turned down.

“We couldn’t have broken the barrier without Asriel’s help,” says Frisk, and you wonder if they and Chara purposefully decided it would be Frisk to say that, or if they bothered to put that level of thought into it. “He lead us to the surface.”

“We will not repay Asriel’s kindness by declaring war.” It’s the same voice Chara used when they said that they would not debate their decision to offer you the position of Ambassador. “We are people of love, hope, and compassion. But it took a human to show us that peace was an option.”

The quiet that quickly falls leaves a vacuum of silence, and then a tiny, shrill noise starts to ring in your ears. Even that sound seems to reach you from far away. Are you some tiny existence inside your own skull, so small that even short spans of space, such as from your shoulder to arm, seem vast as an ocean, or are you perhaps so far away, so removed, watching everything happen from a truly great distance? Chara takes advantage of the opportunity the sudden quiet presents, and the hand on your back presses that much more against your shoulder blade, little claws scratching against your shirt. “We want to return to the surface peacefully.” You can feel their hand, hear their voice. You’re here. Next to them. “We want to explore the world and share it with the people who are already living there.”

“Humans don’t know we exist,” says Frisk. Matter of fact, flat, undeniable. “They don’t remember the war. They aren’t the same humans who created the barrier.”

“Many monsters died, when we were sealed underground.” In the silence, Chara’s able to lower their voice, mournful, respectful. “If we declare war, more lives will be lost.”

“Nobody needs to die.” In Frisk’s insistence, you can almost imagine you hear a note of regret. You’ve always been good at wishful thinking.

You wait for Chara to speak again, but they let the silence drag on, the memory of Frisk’s words curling around the stalactites and through the assembled monsters, filling the air. Nobody needs to die. 

It’s good, that they know that  _ now_. It’s good, that they’ve said they’re going to be better. That they won’t hurt people anymore. 

Your blood’s pumping loudly through the veins in your neck. You rest just a little more of your weight on the stone under your hands. 

“Though the barrier is broken, we have to ask that you wait to explore the surface,” Chara says, apparently satisfied by whatever they were waiting for. “The safety of our people is most important to us. We cannot rush foolishly ahead.” 

There’s more to the speech, after that, but you can’t register nor recount what Chara and Frisk are saying to either side of you. It takes all your effort to keep your back straight and your mouth shut, to breathe through your nose, to look alert and aware, even if you couldn’t be more oblivious to everything around you if you tried. Papyrus and Undyne step forward at some point, and your parents as well. You can only guess Frisk and Chara are explaining the process of meeting government officials, of slowly getting humanity used to the idea of their existence. Not in that much detail, but enough to reassure their people that steps are being taken to pave the way for them to leave this mountain, and soon. 

Maybe they talk about the council they’re setting up too—but, since they still haven’t decided on members, maybe they don’t bring it up after all. 

Their audience of their monster citizens is roaring with applause, then, and you fit a smile on your face, guessing that Chara and Frisk have concluded with something hopeful and encouraging for the future. Then you’re leaving the balcony, Chara’s hand in yours leading you along, and you bob after them like a balloon on a string, just as likely to float off should they let go of you. 

They ask, probably, if they did all right, and you nod while Undyne and Papyrus try to compete over who can be more enthusiastic about how awesome Frisk and Chara’s speech was. Mom’s saying something about lunch, and Frisk and Alphys say they’ll eat on the way to whatever it is they have to do now. But Chara’s fingers remain locked around yours all the way down the mountain and into the car—though you don’t actually remember walking through the golden corridor or the throne room or down the dirt path, but you must have, because you’re in the back seat of the van and Chara’s sitting next to you, looking at you with naked concern on their face, despite their little smile.

You stare at them. 

“Your mom asked what you want for lunch,” they say, a fragile nonchalance in their voice. Mom, in the driver’s seat, has twisted around to look back at you, her mouth pulled in a concerned frown. You wonder how many times she and Chara have tried to get your attention. 

“Um,” you begin, eloquently. You don’t want to have to think about this. It’s just lunch, but your head feels fragile enough without having to make even the simplest decisions. Mom probably doesn’t want to make a big meal for so many guests again, but you can’t very well sit down at a restaurant with the monsters—not yet, anyway. “Something with a drive-thru?”

Mom sighs, considering. You know she’s weighing her hate of fast food places with the fact that it will be cheap and convenient. “There is a Wendy’s on the way,” she finally concedes. 

“What’s Wendy’s?” Undyne asks, and you actually look around to see who all is in the van with you. Alphys and Papyrus have gone to accompany Frisk, you knew that much, and Mettaton’s not present either—you can only assume he’s stayed behind to handle the news broadcasts underground, spreading the word of monsterkind’s imminent freedom. Gerson’s not with you either, though he might be in the car with Dad instead, and Sans has once again made himself scarce. So it’s just Mom, Undyne, Chara, and you. 

“Stuff like burgers and fries,” you tell her, as Mom starts the car. “And Frosties!” You’re suddenly quite glad of your suggestion of a place with a drive-thru; you bet Chara will  _ love _ Frosties.

(You’re very right.)

Chara has to spend quite some time, afterward, cleaning the fur on their muzzle from the chocolate ice cream that’s gotten all over. The way their nose flushes a darker red, you know they’re embarrassed by it, but you’re still pleased to help them discover things they like about the surface. Even something small and silly like a Wendy’s Frosty. 

When you get back home, Mom asks if you’re up to going out again, because you need a new cell phone, and she wants to pick up groceries, too. You don’t think of arguing for a second when she adds, “And you’re letting me pick out the case for this one.” You’ve learned your lesson well enough; you won’t protest even if she gets you one of those huge, thick, chunky ones designed for phones and tablets that exist anywhere near elementary school kids.

It’s clear that she means for Dad to stay home with Chara and Undyne while you’re out, but you remember Chara’s remark about how they were enjoying the glimpses of the surface they’d managed to get from the windows. The thought of leaving them behind, while you and Mom go out...

“Can Chara come too?” you ask.

Mom and Dad exchange considering looks. “Asriel,” Dad says, “people don’t know about monsters yet. Chara can’t exactly wander through the store with you.”

You hadn’t even thought about that. Your face heats up, and you chew the inside of your lip, looking to the side—and your eyes fall on your scarf and winter hat by the door. “What if we disguised them?”

It turns out Chara’s totally on board for wrapping their face up in a scarf, wearing sunglasses and a wool hat, and even awkwardly fitting their feet into a pair of wellies, if it means they get to leave the house and see more of your city. You figure their paws can pass for gloves, though Undyne has to wear a pair of Dad’s gloves in addition to the scarf and sunglasses and winter hat. The two of them look like they’re bundled up for an extremely cold winter, by the time you’re ready to go—you hope they’re not too uncomfortably warm.

Despite how completely covered up they are, when they step out of the car in the strip mall parking lot, you can easily see their awe in their slow steps as they turn completely around, taking everything in. Undyne is even easier to read, shouting, “Why are there so many cars!?” Dad explains to her about parking lots and shopping centers, and her incredulous yells alternate with his patient explanations right up until the five of you reach the doors to the cell phone shop.

Chara’s quickly bored with how long it takes you to peruse the different phones, but if you’re getting a new one, you want it to be able to play all your favourite games. What’s the point otherwise? Dad offers to take them and Undyne window-shopping around the rest of the strip mall, while you try to convince Mom to cover the additional cost to get you the phone with the most storage.

(You don’t succeed; she tells you that you can buy a bigger SD card with your own money if you want the extra space that badly.)

After that, you tag along with Mom through the grocery store. She has you push the cart, and it’s only after she’s grabbed an entire tote bag of apples and twice as many potatoes, plus two gallons of orange juice instead of the usual one, that you start to realize she’s buying more than usual. For your guests? Your earlier thoughts of whether or not Chara will spend the night again return, but you keep them to yourself, pushing the cart along and trying to wheedle Mom into getting the really sugary breakfast cereals.

When you’re in the checkout line, she texts Dad; turns out he’s taken Chara and Undyne into Target, and they are, naturally, enthralled. Mom quietly chuckles. Once you’re done paying, you drop the groceries off in the car, and brace yourself to venture into the department store.

Dad’s easy to find; he and Undyne both stand above most displays and racks of clothing. They’re near the fitting rooms, and you don’t see Chara, even after you’re close enough that there are no clothing displays blocking your view. The conclusion seems obvious, but why would they be trying things on?

(Were they annoyed by the division of the clothing into sections for boys and girls? You’ve always been happy with the selection in the boys department, but you wonder how Chara would feel about it.)

“Mister Dreemurr!” comes a voice from the fitting rooms, and all four of you head back to peek in through the door that’s just cracked open, so that Chara doesn’t have to risk being seen by the store employees. They start when they see you—not surprising, you guess, since you weren’t there when they went in to try things on. They’re in a green and yellow striped cardigan, tags hanging from their wrist, and you’re stupidly glad that they were able to find something in their preferred colours.

“It looks nice!” you tell them. Their nose goes scarlet, and they quickly shut the door.

Their voice comes, muffled, from the other side. “I’ll pay you back, Mister Dreemurr,” they promise. “As soon as the currency exchange is set up.”

“There’s no need to worry about that,” Dad says. He’s grinning, clearly pleased, and you wonder if he feels at all the way you do, happy that Chara’s finding things they like. “Consider it a present to welcome you to our humble city!”

“Are you sure?” 

“Absolutely. Please, don’t worry yourself over it.”

Their next reply doesn’t come right away. When, finally, they manage a, “Thank you,” it’s much quieter. But your dad can clearly still hear it.

“You’re welcome! Please call us over if you’d like us to look at the other items you’ve selected.”

There’s not too much space in the little hall of fitting rooms, so the four of you step out. You can’t see Undyne’s expression under the scarf and sunglasses, but the way she’s pacing with her arms crossed is clear enough. Finally she stills in front of your dad. “Thank you for your hospitality,” she grinds out, and even though the growl of her voice is reduced by the scarf wrapped over her face, the grudging reluctance is still easy to pick out.

“Did you want something, too?” Dad asks.

“No!” Undyne stalks off, and Mom and Dad let her; it’s not like they can’t still see her over the racks, anyway.

A minute or two later, Chara calls you back to ask your opinion on something else. You slip into the dressing room through the barely-open door, and a yelp shoots out of your mouth, the door shutting loudly as you stumble backward into it. 

The boss monster in front of you peers in your direction with eyes that are narrowed in a squint, their mouth a flat line. The pink shirt they’re trying on has horizontal stripes of white stars, and on top of it, they’ve put on a pair of blue denim overalls. But there’s a reddish-brown mark slashed across their left cheek, not their right, and the rest of their off-white fur has a slight cream tint. Their little horns angle back, instead of jutting aggressively forward.

“Pretty good, huh?” Chara asks, opening their eyes and grinning smugly. “I had you fooled for a second, didn’t I?”

Speechless, you nod. Your heartbeat pounds through you, and you breathe in shallow, shaky gasps. 

Their grin disappears, then, and they cock their head to the side, narrowing their eyes. “You’re afraid of them, aren’t you,” they ask, but without the inquiring lift of their voice at the end, it comes across as more of a statement than a question. “Or angry with them?”

You straighten so you’re not leaning against the door anymore, as you frown and look away. “I… both,” you admit, huffing the answer out. “They tried to kill us, and they haven’t even bothered to say sorry. Aren’t you mad, too?”

“Are you angry with me?”

“What?” You jerk your head back up to see that Chara’s taken a step closer to you. Their big eyes are fixed on you, and their mouth works its way into a small, curious smile. “O-Of course not!” you insist.

Chara steps forward again, and you find your shoulder blades and the back of your skull are pressed against the door. You’re trying to back away from them. “Why is that?” they ask, leaning in. There’s hardly two inches between your face and theirs, now; it’s hard to focus on their eyes, with them this close, and your gaze flits from one red iris to the other. “I tried to kill you, too,” they remind you, quiet. “I attacked Frisk with everything I have. If you’re mad at them for what they did,  _ you have to be mad at me too._”

You have to lift your head from the door to shake it. “You didn’t,” you start to object, and their lips part around their fangs.

“Frisk and I are both terrible,” they growl. “They finished all our fights, but I  _ started _ them. And everyone would be all  _ nice _ and  _ gentle _ with poor Frisk, and I’d get  _ nothing. _ Nobody worried about whether or not I was okay. Nobody showed me that kind of sympathy. And I  _ hated _ it.” They pause, reigning their snarls in, until their voice is back down to a low growl. “I’m not going to let you do that same thing to them.”

“But you—you said sorry to me!” Your voice cracks. Chara nearly  _ died_. They nearly died, and then they came back and they saved you, and they said they were sorry, and that they were glad it was you. 

“I haven’t said sorry to Frisk,” they sneer, finally stepping back to give you room to breathe. You sag forward, away from the door, and Chara turns around and glares at themself in the dressing room’s full length mirror. 

You don’t know what to say to that. You  _ want _ to tell them that they don’t have to—even if they started the fight, it’s Frisk who took it too far, and it’s Frisk’s fault they’d almost died! They might still have done, had Alphys not found them and healed them—you’d only learned this yesterday, after the fact, that it was thanks to Alphys continuing to pursue you that Chara was able to recover so quickly and rush to your rescue.

“I thought they might like this shirt,” they say, holding out an arm and examining it. The white stars wrap around the limb in stripes all the way down to the wrist. You assume that they continue down to the waist, also, but the blue overalls cover that. “They like stars a lot. You could probably tell from their magic.” They drop their arm, and though they raise their head to meet their own stare in the mirror, you don’t think their eyes are focused on what’s in front of them at all. “The king and queen had left us books in the castle—when Frisk still lived there with me, there was this book about stars they always read, even though we didn’t know most of the words. They’d make their mom read it to them, even the boring, science-y bits. They liked looking at the pictures.” A little smile flickers across their face, as unsteady as a match lit in the wind. “Once, they tried to show me something in it—their favourite constellation, maybe? I don’t really remember. We were pretty young.” They inhale, and their breath stutters. “When they left the castle to live in the ruins, they—didn’t take much with them. They left that book behind, and I…”

They bow their head, their hands clenching into fists. 

“I destroyed it. I set it on fire, and I watched it burn until there was nothing left.”

  
  
  


(It’s only later that you realize: Chara never answered, when you asked if they were mad at Frisk, too.)

  
  
  


It’s no surprise that Mom and Dad love the idea of getting Frisk an outfit, too. Chara assures your parents that they and Frisk are the same size, so having tried on the pink shirt and the overalls, they know the clothes will fit Frisk just fine. They pick out a pair of brown khaki pants for themself, to go with the cardigan sweater, and Mom even lets you get a new t-shirt with a picture of one of your favourite video game leads on it, though she makes you get a new suit jacket, too. 

Undyne nearly deafens you when the five of you walk past the DVD section, as she exclaims over the anime selection. When Dad asks if she’s interested in anime (and also, tries to ask her the question you continually refuse to answer, ‘What is anime?’) she furiously denies any interest or knowledge in the subject, stomping away through the rest of the store. Mom is definitely fighting back giggles at this point. 

When you get back home, Mom gives Dad a significant look, before drafting Undyne to help put away the groceries. “You know how to cook, do you not?” Mom asks, as the two of them head to the kitchen, and you’re mildly afraid of what’s going to happen out there, should Mom actually draft Undyne into helping prepare dinner. You’re planning to take your new purchases up to your room to put them away, but Dad stops you and Chara before you can. He sits down on the first couple steps leading upstairs, so he can be at your eye level, and he leans his elbows on his knees, smiling gently at both of you.

“Asriel, Chara,” he starts, and you shift your weight on your feet. With your gaze lowered, you can see how Chara, now free of the borrowed wellies, wiggles their toes on the floor. “Last night, you stayed here, instead of returning to Mt. Ebott. If it is okay with the two of you, I’d like to invite you to stay another night.”

Chara’s mouth drops open a little, and Dad holds up a hand. “Before you answer,” he adds. “Toriel and I think that it will be helpful for you to stay with us through this transition of welcoming monsters to the surface. And since Frisk will no longer be living with their mother, we plan to extend the same invitation to them.” Your eyes go wide, as you draw the connection—Frisk and Alphys, Frisk’s promise, their remark about getting their mom and the others—today they took their mom, who isn’t only _ their _ mom, to reunite her with her other families. You must have missed the full explanation sometime after the address at the castle, but now your parents know—which means that your mom now knows you weren’t telling her the full truth this morning. 

Dad is still speaking to Chara. His big voice is soothing, as he tries to put them at ease, “Of course, we understand that once everyone is settled, you will no doubt wish to find a new home. And, Asriel.” He waits for you to lift your head, before he continues. “We will not kick you out of your room. If you are all right with this, and if Chara and Frisk agree to stay, we will decide on a different sleeping arrangement.”

“It’s okay with me,” you say, almost before Dad’s finished talking. You turn to Chara with a smile, but their own grin is a trembling, flighty thing, their lips shaking around their sharp teeth.

“Do you really trust me in the same house as your family?” they ask, their eyes darting back and forth between you both. “I killed my own parents. I tried to kill you.”

Dad’s eyebrows go up at this confession, but incredibly, that’s the only reaction he shows. “Do you plan on trying to kill anyone again?” he asks. You almost want to laugh at the absurdity of the question, but you can tell that Dad’s asking with the same gravity as Chara. 

They shake their head rapidly, their ears flying. “No!” they insist. “But I still—”

“Then if you want to stay, the invitation is still open,” Dad says, putting a hand on Chara’s shoulder, and they go still. “We can make it work out.”

  
  
  


Frisk and Papyrus return, minus Alphys, just in time for dinner, and having missed all the shouting and banging that’s come from the kitchen. Somehow Mom emerges in perfect order, her hajib untouched, her blouse spotless, while Undyne trudges out with smoke still coming off her singed sleeves and mashed potatoes on her face. You have to grab an extra folding chair from the basement so that there’s room for everyone at the table, and of course you’re the one who sits in the odd chair, squeezed between your mom and Chara.

Papyrus somehow manages to loudly praise Mom and Undyne’s cooking while he eats, and you yet again are faced with the question of where the food goes when the skeleton eats it. He also happily tells you how his afternoon went, accompanying Frisk and Alphys as they returned the amalgamates—which you learn is the term for the horrific creatures like Frisk’s mom and the one you and Chara encountered in the lab—to their families. 

“I was very proud of both Frisk and Alphys!” he cheerfully says. The boss monster in question slowly chews their mashed potatoes, as Papyrus continues. “They were honest, even though they were afraid, and they made a lot of families very happy today, by reuniting them with their loved ones!”

“After keeping them apart and plying them with hush money,” Chara comments, lip raised over their fangs. Frisk goes still, fork still in their mouth, before they slowly lower the utensil. Their plate is almost half full of potatoes and peas and corn, but they push it away and slide out of their chair.

“Excuse me,” they mumble, and slink away to the living room. 

Papyrus watches them go, the angle of his eye sockets akin to sympathetically raised eyebrows, and Mom frowns. “Chara,” she says, “that was uncalled for.”

Chara sulks in their seat, slouching down, and stabs a pea with their fork. “It’s  _ true_,” they grumble.

“Be that as it may,” Mom says, “you still said it to hurt them, did you not?”

Chara frowns, and shoves a forkful of peas into their mouth.

At the grocery store, you’d managed to convince Mom to buy one of those plastic trays of tiny, bite-sized cupcakes, half of them chocolate and half vanilla. She brings this out for dessert, and despite how Undyne yells about how sweet they are, and how Chara asks for seconds, Frisk says they’re not hungry, and refuses to have one. Mom tells them that there will still be some left in the fridge, if they change their mind, and Frisk only shrugs.

After the meal, Mom gets you and Dad and Papyrus on dish duty, and you can see her grab the bag of new clothes for Frisk as she makes her way to the living room. You guess she’s going to ask them about staying over, the same way Dad asked Chara. You’re not sure where everyone will sleep if they accept—if it’s just Chara and Undyne, you could take your bed back while Chara takes the couch bed and Undyne moves the sleeping bag down to the living room, but if you add Frisk (and, presumably, Papyrus) to the mix, you’re going to either need more sleeping bags or to invest in some futons or something.

You can’t really hear Mom’s conversation with them over the sound of running water and the occasional clatter when the bone of Papyrus’s fingers hits the ceramic plates, but you do hear it when Frisk shouts, “No!”

It’s lucky you were holding the bowl you were washing over a sink full of soapy water, because it falls right out of your limp fingers. You hardly feel the water splash you in the face. Dad turns to look toward the living room, mildly concerned, but you run. Frisk yells again, before you make it there, “Don’t want it!”

You get to the living room, and your mom is seated on the couch, her hands still held out mid-gesture, the bag of clothes spilled out on the floor. Frisk is standing off-balance—you think they must have hit their leg on the coffee table as they stood up, for the way they’re off kilter now—but what catches your attention is their bared fangs, that growl that you hoped never to hear again filling your living room, that dangerous sound reverberating through your  _ home_. 

“Have a place to stay,” Frisk snarls, their chest heaving with breath. “Have my own clothes!” 

“I didn’t mean to say that you didn’t,” Mom tries, but Frisk lets out a strangled noise.

“Stop it!” they cry, shaking their head and bringing their hands up over their ears. Their claws sink into the messy fur, catching in knots when they pull their hands down. “Don’t want it! Acting like my mom—I  _ have _ a mom! Don’t need you!”

“Frisk,” your mom starts, rising to stand, and Frisk snarls, hunching forward. Their hands fly out, silver flames sparking between their fingers, and your mom freezes where she is.

There’s a wheezing, terrified yelp of a laugh. Next to you, Chara, too, has frozen, clinging to the doorjamb as if it’s all that’s keeping them on their feet. They bark out another of those agonized sounds, and Frisk’s entire body jerks. The fire in their hands sputters and quickly dies. They stumble backward, away from your mom, but when they turn, their eyes fall on you and Chara in the doorway, and the lines of their jaw tense, stricken. 

Frisk spins around again, on unsteady feet, and then lurches toward the door to the backyard. Papyrus calls their name, too late, as they yank it open, and then they’re fleeing—on all fours, their paws tearing up grass as they dart away, faster than any human could ever hope to run.

“Frisk! Wait!” Papyrus yells again, racing after them. You follow him to the backyard, but by the time you get to the door, Frisk has disappeared from sight, and Papyrus is quickly becoming a small figure in the distance, his yells faint. 

“That went poorly,” Mom’s voice comes from behind you, as her hand lands gently on your shoulder. She sounds entirely unaffected, and you don’t think she has any idea how dangerous Frisk actually is. “They’re probably returning to Mt. Ebott. Should we drive after them?”

A burst of giggles spikes out of Chara, and you and Mom turn around to see them still leaning on the doorjamb. “You’d better not,” they wheeze around a too-large grin. “Give them some space to calm down, or they might tear someone’s arms off.” A bout of nervous laughter has them bent double, then, and the back of your neck goes cold.

Your mom’s not a robot with metal arms. Your mom’s not a monster with magic of her own to defend against Frisk’s fire.

They’d summoned their magic in anger. That silver fire had lit up  _ in your living room _ at  _ your mom_. 

“Papyrus will be able to deal with them,” Undyne adds, but she’s frowning as she looks to the open door. 

“Does this happen often?” Mom asks, pulling the door shut behind her. Chara puts their hands over their mouth, but it’s a useless effort, and they can’t contain their giggles at that statement.

It’s Undyne who answers. She seems strangely reluctant—for all that she clearly prefers Chara, you guess she doesn’t like telling your human parents about one of her monarchs like this. But the simple, “Yeah,” of her reply is honest. “They gotta let their anger out.”

“There are more constructive ways to deal with your anger,” Dad says, firmly. Nobody has any reply to that.

Mom gathers up the discarded clothes, and Dad suggests that you and he check to see how many news outlets have commented on the leaked photos. It’s not his most elegant of subject changes, but you’re happy for the distraction. Chara and Undyne join you, seemingly for nothing better to do, and the results are about as you expected—no major news outlets are treating the story seriously yet, except a couple comments about the gossip going around, but on twitter and facebook, several reposts are accumulating likes and retweets that are in the hundreds of thousands. The clarity of Mettaton’s photos is definitely helping—unlike common pictures of yetis and UFOs and the Loch Ness monster, blurry and distant, Mettaton’s camera has captured you and Chara in perfect focus.

(Dad, somehow, has never learned not to read the comments on facebook posts, and you only narrowly avoid having to explain to him what a ‘furry’ is.)

Surprisingly, in addition to Mettaton’s photos, there are some cell phone shots of the five of you at Target, accompanied by suspicious speculations about Undyne and Chara’s appearances. Your idea to disguise them worked to avoid revealing the truth too soon, but it seems it’s also had the benefit of adding believability to the possibility that you’re hiding real monsters under your roof. 

It’s starting to look like this might actually work.

Even though you have the same guests you had last night, the awkward air doesn’t dissipate as you all get ready for bed. Chara offers to give your bed back, but you’re too tired to deal with things like moving the sleeping bag downstairs for Undyne, so you shrug and say they can stay in your room again tonight if they like. When Mom tucks you in downstairs, she asks you if Frisk has gotten that angry with you before, and you reluctantly admit that though they haven’t ever turned that rage on you, you’ve seen them lose control and attack Chara and Mettaton. 

Not you, though. When they tried to kill you, they were completely calm.

When you wake up an hour later in a cold sweat, you’re not really surprised that your nightmares have returned, starring Frisk and your mom. You  _ are _ surprised that Chara’s included—not as a helpless victim like you, screaming uselessly, but joining Frisk in attacking your mom as they shriek with desperate laughter.

According to the DVD player clock, you manage to sleep nearly a full three hours on your next attempt, and are frightened awake a little after one AM. You’re debating getting up to get a drink or staying under the covers and pretending you can fall asleep and not have another nightmare, when you hear footsteps coming down the stairs. Probably Chara or Undyne going to get some water from the kitchen, you figure.

“Thank you, your majesty,” says Papyrus, and you bolt straight up.

You can hear the hissed, “Shhh!” as Chara tries to get Papyrus to lower his voice. “I told you, you don’t have to call me that all the time,” they grumble, and you throw your blankets off. You creep into the hall, and from there you can see two silhouettes in the foyer, next to the stairs. “I still don’t think I’ll be any help,” they add, “but whatever.”

“Chara?” you whisper, and both monsters start, turning to see you. “What’s going on?”

They cross their arms, and it’s hard to make out their expression in the dark, but you can see in the outline of their silhouette how they turn their face away from you. It’s Papyrus who answers, his voice quieter than you’ve ever heard it.

“I can’t find Frisk.”


	3. Where There's A Will

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Let me tell you something: you'd better start thinking on your own, or one of these days you're going to do [something you cannot undo.](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=61Vl8atr-7k)

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> This was originally going to be one chapter, and I always knew it was going to be big. But then I finished the first draft and it clocked in at 25k words. So, I split it in half, or close enough to. The final chapter will be coming along in a day or two.
> 
> Considering the tags on this fic, and the fact that some of them come into play this chapter & the next, if you feel that the tension from having to wait will be too much, it's entirely understandable; come back in a few days, and the conclusion will be here, and you can read both of them back to back.
> 
> On that note, I had to add a couple of tags that I wasn't expecting. Asriel is a Huge Asshole in this & the next chapter, including a lot of casual ableism that he honestly doesn't quite recognize for what it is, because he's internalized a lot of toxic BS. Also, I've tagged for the **graphic depictions of the aftermath of violence** , and then added a graphic depictions of violence archive warning to the fic too, just to make sure my bases are covered and that nobody is going in without fair warning.
> 
> This isn't tagged, though I'll add a tag if it's thought I should, but another note regarding characterization: between posting the last chapter and this one, it became apparent that Frisk and Chara both display [many symptoms](http://shitborderlinesdo.tumblr.com/post/102600734264/the-borderline-personality-disorder-checklist) of [Borderline Personality Disorder](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Borderline_personality_disorder), to the point where a diagnosis is very likely.
> 
> An unrelated note: in this chapter, a character quotes Rick Riordan, from what I believe is the book The Lightning Thief.
> 
> Lastly, huge shoutout to [feralphoenix](http://archiveofourown.org/users/feralphoenix/), whose help on these final chapters was invaluable. You are always helping me be the best writer I can be!! 
> 
> So. Please double check the tags on this work before reading. That said....
> 
> get rekt  
>    
>    
>    
>    
>  

“You don’t have to come with us, Asriel,” Chara says, yet again. You finish tying your shoes and stand up, looking at them. They’re waiting just outside, on the little stone path that leads up to your house through your front lawn. They’re still in your t-shirt and sweatpants, which means that when they turn to the side, you can see their little tail peek out between the two garments. They’ve left their crown off—presumably it’s upstairs, in your room. Their eyes are large and shining.

They don’t look like royalty at all. 

You make sure your new cell phone is in the pocket of your hoodie before you step out the front door, pulling it shut behind you as you look up and down the street quickly, but all your neighbors’ homes are dark, save for the porch lights that stay on all night. Hopefully nobody is up to see the skeleton and … goat(?) monsters at your door.

(Is ‘goat’ really the right comparison for Chara and Frisk? They have paws instead of hooves, and Chara’s pupils, at least, are round like your own.

You remember Frisk’s curling ram horns and the horizontal slashes of silver in the center of their dark eyes.

… Now isn’t the time.)

Instead of replying, you ask, “How are we going to get there?” Your school is closer to Mt. Ebott than your home, so walking to the mountain after classes had ended wasn’t too terrible (though, it had meant you hadn’t taken your usual bus home—maybe it’s for the best you fell underground, because you really hadn’t thought that through at  _ all_), but walking to Mt. Ebott from your home, in the dead of night? And Papyrus has already been there and back, apparently. Do skeletons get tired? Is there an equivalent of sore muscles for someone who’s all bone? In any case, walking there will take you ages. “None of us can drive.”

“Don’t worry! My—” 

Chara shushes Papyrus, and he immediately lowers his voice, bending down to just above your eye level, as if he’s whispering so quietly that you need to be that close to hear him. (You don’t.)

“My brother knows a shortcut!” he finishes.

With a sinking suspicion, you lean to the side so you can see behind Papyrus. Sure enough, there’s Sans, standing on the sidewalk, grinning as he takes in the sight of your quiet neighborhood. He catches sight of you and winks. Reflexively, your nose scrunches up in disgust.

“I doubt that,” you mutter, even as you follow Papyrus and Chara to the sidewalk. How could Sans have found a shortcut from your own home to Mt. Ebott, when you’ve been living here for years and he’s only been on the surface for two days?

Sans chuckles, and you decide you don’t care if he heard your grumblings or not. Maybe if he can tell how annoyed you are, he’ll be less useless. “Might wanna hold hands, kids,” he advises, turning to walk up the street in what is definitely the opposite of the direction to Mt. Ebott.

“That’s the wrong way!” you hiss. Before you can insist on leading the way yourself, if everyone is so determined to walk all the way to the mountain, Chara’s fingers close around your own. Your voice leaves you, as you drop your gaze to their hand.

Normally, their paw pads are warm and smooth and slightly squishy. But when they press against your own human skin as Chara grips your hand, they’re…

… cold.

You look up at them, taking in their half-lidded eyes and their fangs pressed against their lower lip as they look away from you. They’d told you before that boss monsters were naturally good at fire magic—you’ve seen them summon up their own little flames for something as simple as drying the tear tracks from their face. Their grip’s always been warm, before now.

You don’t say anything, and you squeeze their paw.

“Here we are,” Sans says, and you look up. The squawk that leaves your mouth is hardly dignified, and it’s a good thing you can’t see any of the houses on your street anymore, because you’re certainly loud enough to wake all your neighbors and your parents. Instead, you find yourself surrounded by trees, and before you, the cavern leading into the underground of Mt. Ebott yawns open. The moon provides enough light for you to see by, but it doesn’t reach very far at all into the cave, and that abyssal darkness doesn’t look any more inviting despite knowing exactly where it leads. You spin around, careful not to pull at Chara’s hand, and you can see the sloping dirt path descending the mountain. It gets lost in trees and foliage, but eventually you can see the foot of the mountain, the road to the little parking lot where, theoretically, hikers could leave their cars, if any hikers ever came to this little mountain. Further in the distance are buildings and streetlights—you can’t quite see your school, but you know how you would get there from here.

“Thank you, Sans!” Papyrus chirps, and you turn back around. Sans, who’s already sat down on a rock that’s conveniently the right height for him to rest on, shrugs carelessly. 

“It’s no problem,” he says, eye sockets somehow falling shut. “I know you wouldn’t ask if it weren’t important. You're not the kind of guy to make _ mountains _ out of molehills.”

Papyrus grits his teeth, but crosses his arms and nods. “Indeed!” he agrees. “And the Great Papyrus doesn’t make a habit of cutting corners!”

The urge to demand an explanation for your arrival at Mt. Ebott itches at your tongue, but you know the answer you’ll get, and how unsatisfying it will be. But apparently Sans’s magic is actually useful, unlike the monster himself.

Sans stays behind as the three of you enter the underground, Chara's fire lighting the way. It’s your third time going through these corridors—or, you suppose, your fourth, but you can’t remember the return trip from earlier today. Chara is probably stressed enough without having to deal with your difficulties staying focused, too, so you try to keep your attention on your surroundings instead of drifting away again. You doubt you’d notice anything that they or Papyrus might miss, but if there’s any clues to Frisk’s location and you skim past them because your head’s in the clouds, you’ll be pretty mad with yourself later.

The tall, stone-carved archways are just as regal and intimidating as they’ve been the previous times you’ve passed under them. There’s something worn and ancient to the structures—this part of the underground isn’t in ruins, no, but it still has that feeling you get from photos of old Greek and Roman structures, that even though it’s still grand and impressive, more than that, it’s lonely, a relic of lost times. Until you, nobody had come this way in so long—nobody’s so much as looked at this architecture, that some monster must have taken the time to design and carve and build.

You hurry through the empty and abandoned throne room. The corridor where you met Sans is lit up with the silver of starlight and the moon, not the golden dawn light that flooded it when you first passed through. You’d like to ask how exactly the light even gets through this corridor, when all you’ve seen of the underground confirms that above you is nothing but stone and stalactites.

“You’re sure they came this way?” you ask, tilting your head to look up at Papyrus.

The skeleton nods, and because it’s Papyrus, even that motion is enormous. “Absolutely certain!” he confirms. “I was a little worried, when I lost sight of them—even the Great Papyrus cannot keep up with a determined boss monster—but they…”

Uncharacteristically, Papyrus trails off. You and Chara both look up at him, and the bones of his jaw tug up in a nervous smile. It’s still weird—uncanny-valley, you think—to see his skull move the same way your face can, but there’s no denying the slant of his brows and eye sockets. 

“I might have forgotten to mention a thing!” he laughs, reaching up to scratch at the back of his head.

You stop at the foot of the stairs which, you’re pretty sure, lead up to Chara’s wing of the castle. They cross their arms, and frown up at Papyrus. “Tell us now, then,” they say.

“Frisk definitely came this way,” Papyrus says. He drops his head, fiddling with his gloved fingers as he continues. “I have to apologize for looking through your home, your majesty!”

“You don’t have to call me—” Chara sighs, abandoning their protests to Papyrus’s use of the title. “How do you know they were here?”

Papyrus gestures for the two of you to follow. “They left something,” he says. “I was hoping I would be able to find them earlier, so I didn’t think to take it with me.” You exchange a glance with Chara, but they only shrug, apparently just as clueless as you. You guess this explains why Sans brought you to the entrance to the underground, rather than a specific location within the mountain, but it’s not exactly reassuring. You’re used to Papyrus being much more direct than this.

Distracted, you trip on the first stair, and Chara’s fingers tighten around your own to catch you. Frisk and Chara’s hands are the same size, and both their grips are so, so strong, and it’s too much—it’s too much like Frisk dragging you, stumbling down the steps. You have to bite the inside of your cheek, hard, before you can make your legs move again. 

Chara holds you steady until you have your feet back under you. Once you seem to have your balance again, their cold grip on your hand loosens, their fingers slack. You could easily break away. You don’t have to keep holding their hand. They’re not pulling you after them; they’re not dragging you and ignoring your pleas for them to stop. You’re here of your own will, now. You chose to get out of bed and follow them here to find Frisk.

Nobody is dead, you fiercely remind yourself, trying to surreptitiously wipe your eyes as you reach the top of the stairway. Frisk hasn't hurt anyone this time.

Papyrus waits patiently at the top of the stairs for you and Chara. Once you climb the last step, he turns and leads you to the room where Chara and Frisk tried to take each other’s lives, and also yours. You linger at the doorway instead of following him all the way in, standing next to the wall, reluctant to even look in the room. But—you remind yourself—this has to be difficult for Chara, too. The dust that had already filled the room before you and Frisk got here… Chara must have way worse memories of this place than you do. The least you can do is stand with them as they look at what Papyrus wanted to show you. So you don’t cross the threshold, but you take the last step needed to bring you past the doorjamb so you can see inside.

You’re immediately struck by how little the room resembles your last memory of it. Absolutely everything is charred, burnt, the mattress covered in black ash instead of dusty blankets. The remains of the bed look brittle, as though it might disintegrate if you so much as brush your fingers against it. The dresser and bed frame retain most of their structure, though the wood has cracked and split and turned black, and there are gaps where a few sizeable pieces must have fallen and crumbled apart upon impact with the floor. Anything else that may have been in this room—any toys or clothing or knick-knacks or pictures on the walls—thanks to Frisk’s fire, anything else is gone; nothing remains but dust and ash.

(There’s a certain consistency to the dust, you notice, now that you know what it is, which sets it apart from ash or sand or even the dust that accumulates in your own home until Mom makes you wipe down the bookshelves. You’ll never again mistake it for anything else.)

In the center of the ruined bed, resting delicately among the remnants of Frisk’s anger, a crown—more of a circlet, really—gleams in the dim light. You’ve seen it before; its twin is in your room at home. Even though it’s been less than a day, you know the shine of those diamonds and gold and silver, all carefully worked into the shape of the Delta Rune.

“How dare they,” hisses Chara, turning away and stomping down the hall so quickly that you don’t even realize their hand is no longer in yours until you spin around to see that they’ve gotten halfway to the living room. Their claws slice angry little gouges into the wooden floor. You and Papyrus both scramble to follow, as Chara strides forward with furious purpose. “How dare they!” Chara’s voice is rising, the faint rumblings of a growl starting to roil their words. You catch up to them, and you can see the long, unpleasant grin that draws their lip over their fangs. “Do they think they can just give up?  _ Now? _ After  _ everything they did to me to try earn that crown!?” _

“Chara,” you try to say, but you hardly even manage a whisper, their name gone to ash in the back of your throat.

They stop abruptly, shaking their head, their ears flapping against their shoulders. When they still, their growl has died down, though you still hear traces of it in their heavy exhales. “It doesn’t matter,” they rasp. Their head is angled away from you, and when you try to lean around to catch sight of their face, they jerk away. You get the message, and you pull back to give them their space. “Let’s just find them.”

“I apologize,” comes Papyrus’s voice, as the skeleton stops a couple paces behind you. “I should have remembered and told you before we left.”

Chara shakes their head, though this time, the motion is more controlled, less frantic. “Frisk is the one who chose to leave it there. I would have been upset no matter when I found out.” They turn their head, halfway to looking back over their shoulder. Their lip is still raised over their fangs, a grimace that falls somewhere between the way a wolf or dog looks when it growls, and the way Mom smiles when a news anchor asks a particularly ignorant or racist question of her or Dad. “Papyrus,” they say, their voice carefully light, not matching their face at all. “Please keep that crown safe until we find them. They’ll want it back.”

“Yes, your majesty!”

Papyrus runs back to the room, and you try again to catch Chara’s gaze. They let you, and when your eyes meet, the question that had been trying to climb up your throat falls apart like rotted wood. 

“What is it?” they ask you, tilting their head. Their expression of strained anger gives way to curiosity at whatever idiotic face you must be making. It’s your turn to shake your head and look away.

The three of you head to the elevator to take you to Mettaton’s resort, crossing the high walkway overlooking the many homes and buildings that make up the capital. It’s not as dark as the night sky outside, but the light is muted, dim, compared to how things looked when Chara and Frisk gave their speech, or even when you’d first walked this pathway going the other direction, Frisk and Chara tugging you along, finally approaching the end of that long night spent traveling through the mountain. You’re sure there’s some magic responsible for the approximation of day and night, but you do wonder how the monsters ensured that their underground light source stayed synchronized to the cycle of the sun, since it seems to match that when it’s night aboveground, it’s night down here as well. Though you wonder if that means some monsters are nocturnal, because there are plenty of monsters still active and awake regardless—when you step off the elevator, the resort is as just full as you remember from last time passing through. Uncomfortably so, in fact, because while last time you’d drawn a few stares by virtue of accompanying Mettaton, this time when you feel the monsters’ eyes on you, it’s with the knowledge that they would stare regardless of whether you were with Chara or alone. They recognize you. The third child.

The glass doors slide shut behind you as you leave, and once you’re a bit further away from the resort, Chara asks Papyrus where else he’s already looked for Frisk. Rather than simply list out all the places he’s checked, Papyrus begins to recount his entire search, including which monsters he’d spoken to and asked to let him know if they’d see the young monarch.

“Did you tell them why—” Chara starts to ask, but they can’t quite finish the question. Why Papyrus was looking? Why Frisk ran away? 

“Nobody asked me that!” Papyrus replies cheerfully, and you get the sinking feeling that he  _ would  _ have spilled the beans if someone  _ had _ been curious about why a Royal Guard was looking for one of the two rulers of monsterkind. “But many of the people I spoke to did ask if I could deliver messages to the two of you when I found you! They seemed to think that if I was with one of you, I’d be with both of you!”

Well, it’s not an unreasonable assumption, you guess. Next to you, Chara meekly asks, “What… what messages?”

“I was planning to let you know when we found Frisk! So that I could tell you both at once! But I can repeat them again later!” Papyrus replies. “The woman who runs the inn near my house wanted to tell you that she was sorry to hear the curse wasn’t broken, but she believes in you and Frisk! She’s confident you’ll grow into wonderful leaders! The librarian at the librarby said to tell you she’s glad you’re choosing not to go to war! The monster who does the junior jumbles said to let you know that they trust you, and they’re with you all the way! The—”

Chara’s feet come to a stop before the rest of them seems to realize, and they stumble. You wish you could say you caught them, suavely repaying their favour from before, but it’s Papyrus who swoops in to steady them before you even realize what’s happened. They look up at him as he sets them back on their feet, and their mouth moves soundlessly, opening and closing several times. Papyrus waits with a patient smile, until finally Chara whispers, “Everyone said things like that? Nobody—nobody was angry that it’s—that we’re both ruling together?”

“Of course not!” Papyrus is still smiling, but it’s gone stiff—a strange observation to make about a skull, considering stiff should be the natural state of bone already, but it’s the only way you can think to describe his expression. “Several monsters wanted me to tell you! That they’re glad they misunderstood the prophecy! They were happy to learn that it wasn’t meant to be only one of you. Nobody is disappointed!”

“I thought—No. I  _ know _ there were monster who didn’t think I’d be any good.” Chara’s voice cracks, and their grin shakes, and their wide eyes stare at the ground, their head bowed. “Aren’t they mad that—aren’t they worried I’ll mess up, I’ll make Frisk—”

“Chara,” Papyrus says, “may I hug you?”

Chara’s head shoots up, and they gape at Papyrus, but he only smiles patiently at them. They nod, jerkily, and he drops down to one knee, arms open. Chara trips into the embrace, and Papyrus brings his arms around them and rubs circles on their back. You can see them trembling, and you hear the loud echoes of their breath against Papyrus’s armour. 

“I’m sorry,” says Papyrus. “I’m one of the monsters who made you feel this way, aren’t I?”

Chara is silent. 

“Even if nobody said they thought one of you was better than the other, you don’t need to hear something said out loud to understand it.” He continues to rub their back with steady motions. “Everyone was waiting. For some kind of sign, to tell us which of you would be the child from the prophecy. We were all so busy looking for a sign, we forgot to really look at the two of you, and nobody even knew what kind of sign it would be!”

“My parents knew,” Chara whispers. “Frisk knew.”

“I do not believe that is correct!” says Papyrus. “Because there was no need for such a sign after all, and everyone is very relieved! It turns out that the two of you are both extremely wonderful! And now everyone will be able to see that! Instead of only looking at one of you!”

Chara lets out a ragged breath. When they speak, it’s still a scratchy whisper. “You say very kind things, Papyrus. I can see why Frisk chooses to spend time with you.” They straighten, and Papyrus lets them step out of his arms, though he remains kneeling as they take another deep breath, and then one more. “Thank you.”

“You are welcome! The Great Papyrus gives only the greatest of hugs!” 

Chara laughs. It’s quiet and small and relieved. “Let’s keep going. I believe you had just finished telling me you asked everyone in Tem Village?”

By the time Papyrus finishes listing out all the places he’s checked already, the three of you have reached Alphys’s lab. You’ve tied your hoodie around your waist, but in the molten heat of this part of the mountain, your pajamas are still stuck to your shoulders and back with sweat. 

“So,” says Chara, summarizing what Papyrus has said, “that leaves the ruins.” They’re smiling, but there’s apprehension in their voice. “If they’ve holed themself up in there, we’re not going to be able to get to them.”

“We will not know if we do not try! Perhaps they left the door unlocked?”

Chara levels an unimpressed gaze at Papyrus. “If they’d left it unlocked, you would have already looked there.” Papyrus offers a sheepish smile, but he can’t deny it, and Chara’s shoulders slump. “Papyrus, I can’t open it. You know that.”

“Maybe this time you’ll be able to!”

Chara frowns. “Fine.” They turn to you, then, and smile sweetly. Your stomach goes tight. “Asriel,” they say, “you don’t have to come with us. This is only going to be a waste of time. You might as well head back now and have Sans take you home.”

You shake your head. You don’t even need to think about it. “It’s okay. I’ll stay.” A thought occurs to you then, and you hesitate, but add, “Unless you want me to leave?” Your voice goes quiet against your will, and you wind up mumbling the last words. Chara seems to understand you, though. 

“It’s up to you,” they say, in a completely indifferent tone, smiling carelessly.

Maybe going back home is the better idea. Even if it does mean that you’d have to be around Sans. You know that if Mom or Dad knew what you were up to right now, they wouldn’t be happy. And you’re  _ tired_—you haven’t been getting enough sleep as it is, and it’s the dead of night. 

Still, you smile at them. “Then I’ll stay with you.”

The colours of Chara’s nose and fur aren’t as vibrant here in the underground—now that you’ve seen them outside, in the sunlight, you know what they really look like. But you think Chara’s nose flushes a darker red, before they jerk their gaze away from you.

“It’s outside of the River Person’s usual hours, but let’s see if they’re there anyway. It’ll be faster if they can take us part of the way,” Chara says, stiffly and deliberately dragging the conversation back to focus on the task at hand. Maybe you should ask what they mean, but you only follow them, as they lead you down a stone stairway you hadn’t noticed last time you passed this way. Somehow, when you reach the foot of the stairs, instead of the expected lava, water laps gently at the edge of the rocky platform. A boat—maybe the size of a large canoe—bobs just next to the landing, and a figure wearing the kind of big hooded cloak you expect to see at Halloween or renaissance festivals sits at the helm.

“What a fortunate turn of events!” Papyrus joyfully exclaims. He quickly boards the boat, and it rocks only a little as he settles his gangly limbs into a seated position. Chara follows, hopping gracefully from the rocky edge of the shore. The boat hardly moves at all when they land, the slight tap from their impact of their claws on the wood almost louder than the little splashes of water lapping at the boat.

“Um,” you start, shifting nervously where you stand. Chara cocks their head at you, and Papyrus pats the plank he’s sat on invitingly. The sound of his bony fingers against the wood, even gloved, is loud, and it echoes in the cavern.

“The River Person can get us most of the way there in a jiffy!” he explains.

You glance to Chara, and then to the hooded figure. Their robes shift with the small motions of the boat, but otherwise, they’re still and unmoving, even when a small voice emerges from their hood. “Tra la la,” they sing, quietly. The notes are flat. “Things you lose are always in the last place you check.”

You grimace, but when you look at Chara again, they don’t seem concerned by the ominous voice. Yet another strange and unnerving occurrence to chalk up to ‘weird monster and magic things,’ you guess. Papyrus has to help you get into the boat, and you’re embarrassed by the yelp you make when it rocks under your feet, water splashing at the sides. Chara giggles, and you sit quickly, gripping the wooden plank under you tightly with both hands. 

You have to bite down another yelp when you begin to move. There’s no motor, and the hooded figure who’s—driving? Sailing?—the hooded figure isn’t paddling with an oar, or directing the boat with any other motion you can see. But the boat slices through the river at a quick pace, sending water splashing up as high as your face and leaving tall waves behind in your wake. You can see small, glowing, cyan stones start to appear in the cave walls, as you travel further; shortly after, they disappear, and the cavern opens up. You slip your hoodie back on as the temperature drops. Snow begins to fall—just little flurries, but more than enough to let you know that in such a short span of time, you’re already this far through the underground.

The boat slows, and then comes to a stop next to a snowy bank. Chara leaps onto solid ground with the same ease and finesse with which they boarded; you have to hold tight to Papyrus’s skinny fingers as you make your wobbling way back to land. “Tra la la,” hums the River Person, when their boat is empty once more. 

“Will you still be here later?” Chara asks them. 

There’s no shake of their head, no fluttering of fabric to indicate movement under their hooded robe. “Knowing too much of your future is never a good thing,” they reply, in a voice that manages to be both sing-song and deadpan.

Chara huffs at the non-answer. “Thank you for bringing us here,” they say, and with that, they turn and head toward the town you can see a little ways off. 

You trot to catch up to them. When you look over your shoulder, the River Person and their boat remain unmoving; it doesn’t look like they’re going anywhere fast. “Can’t you just order them to wait for us?” 

“Of course not,” says Chara, their eyebrows raised incredulously. “Either they’ll be there when we come back this way, or they won’t.”

Snow crunches under your shoes and Chara’s paws as you make your way through the little town. You can hear the sound of Papyrus’s boots in the snow behind you. Unlike at Mettaton’s resort, there are very few other monsters out and about, and so the only real noises come from the three of you. You remember the icy bird-like monsters who had watched your procession through the town last time, and wonder what they think of getting to go to the surface. 

You zip your hoodie all the way up, tug the hood over your head, and pull the drawstrings at the neck to close the fabric tighter around your face. Still, a shiver wiggles its way up your spine, and you have to focus on keeping your teeth from chattering. It shouldn’t be that far to the ruins, though, especially if you don’t have to bother with Papyrus’s puzzles this time around. You’ll warm up as you keep moving, probably.

A little gold flame flares up before you, hovering just in front of your chest. You startle, almost jumping back, and the fire moves with you. Pleasant heat radiates out from the little flame, spreading all the way through your fingers and toes and even your cold nose. Right. This is friendly fire. You’d giggle at the pun you’ve made to yourself, but you’re too tired for even that. You lift your hands to cup it, absorbing even more of that comfortable warmth through your palms, and you crack a tiny grin anyway; it almost looks like you’re the one summoning up the magic fire, holding your hands around it like this.

“Thanks,” you say. Your voice comes out quiet, timid, and Chara only shrugs. 

Last time you’d come this way, you wouldn’t have been able to hold your hands around the little fire and pretend you were casting the spell to create it. Not with Frisk and Chara each summoning up their own small warming fires, needing to prove that they were each equally capable, and not with Chara’s tight grip on your hand, unwilling to let go of their ticket to the surface for even a moment.

You look over your shoulder, and Papyrus grins at you. He’s still a few paces back, while you and Chara walk abreast. If you keep your voice down, he probably won’t overhear.

“Hey, Chara?” 

They turn their head to look at you, still walking. You take it as acknowledgment that they’re listening, and try to figure out how to ask the question that’s been burning at the back of your mind for some time now.

“I get why you’re mad at Frisk,” you start, and they huff. You do, though! Maybe not all the way, or the same, but you’re mad too, that they’d threaten your mom like that and then run off. Or that they’d try to kill you and then never even bother to say sorry. “But I don’t understand why… why you don’t, um. If they’re going to give up and run away and let you have the throne, why don’t you just... take it?”

Chara laughs. It’s a mirthless sound, empty breaths huffed through their teeth, which fades away into the cold, still air around you. The snowflakes still fall weightlessly, hovering and swirling in the air on their slow, meandering trip down, but the air is heavy, as though all the weight of the mountain is pressing down upon you. “Probably the same reason I couldn’t even scratch them when everything was on the line.” Their gaze is fixed straight ahead as you walk. “Even when all we do is hurt each other, I keep seeking them out. It’s why we were together when we found you.” They look to you, briefly, smiling widely.

“I don’t get it,” you say, hints of a petulant whine creeping into your voice. It doesn’t make any  _ sense. _ “Why would you want to be around someone who hurts you?”

Once more, they face forward, in the direction of the ruins. “Asriel,” they begin, and then ask you something completely unexpected. “Do you know how our magic works?”

“No, but—”

“Our magic is only as strong as our will to hurt. Frisk and I hate each other. If I wasn’t sure before, I know, now—the scars on our faces are proof of our feelings.” Absently, they raise one hand, rubbing at the reddish-brown fur on their cheek, the mirror image of Frisk’s. “But when it came down to it, neither of us could…” Their hand drops, curling into a fist at their side. “I  _ can _ kill. I mean. I killed my parents. I  _ hated _ them. I  _ wanted _ them to—” 

The little fire between your raised hands flares and spits, and Chara inhales deeply, their shoulders rising with the motion. You glance quickly over your shoulder, but Papyrus doesn’t seem to have heard a thing, still happily trailing behind you.

“But it goes both ways.” Chara’s voice spills out, their words racing past their fangs. “Our ability to withstand another’s magic—if we trust them, if we don’t want to hurt them, then—they can—so my parents, they didn’t—” The golden fire winks out at the same moment Chara stops, planting their paws into the snow, their head bowing forward and their fists shaking. “I  _ killed _ them, they didn’t—”

“That’s not—that’s not your fault,” you babble, automatically, not thinking about what you say before the words jump from your mouth. “They made you—”

“Don’t say that!” Chara screams.

You stumble backwards a step, away from them. Between the two of you, your last words hang, lingering in the air like the snowflakes that gently flutter down. You can hear Papyrus’s approaching footsteps slow, and then eventually come to a stop. The three of you stand unmoving, and your eyes don’t leave Chara, whose chest heaves with loud breaths.

“Please.” They force the word out, their small, wobbling voice barely squeezing between their shuddering gasps. “Please don’t say that.” Their arms come up to wrap around themself. They’re shaking. So are you. “That’s what Frisk says. ‘You made me so angry.’” A giggle squeaks out through their teeth. “My parents said I had to be stronger. I had to try harder, I had to be  _ better_, and I—I just wanted them to  _ stop!” _

You risk darting a glance to Papyrus. His eye sockets are slanted in sympathy, and his hands fidget at chest-height. You think he might like to reach out to Chara, but he doesn’t.

“It was so  _ easy_,” Chara whispers, their shoulders slumping. You’ve heard them speak with this voice once, before. Right before they tried to kill you. “They  _ trusted _ me. They didn’t want to hurt me. They—they didn’t hate me at all.”

At first, you think they’re finally crying, but no—the little noises you mistook for sobs are yet more tiny, desperate giggles. You feel powerless. What are you supposed to do? You wish you could go back in time and stop Chara’s parents from doing this to them. Maybe it’s wrong to kill people, but you think that their parents dying was the best thing that could have happened for Chara—you just wish it had happened sooner, or that they didn’t have to blame themself for it.

“Mom…” You don’t know if this is the right thing to say, or if you should have started by talking about one of your own parents, but you can’t go back now. “Mom says that sometimes, we can hurt people without meaning to. Just because it’s an accident, or it wasn’t what we meant to do, it doesn’t mean we didn’t hurt them. Maybe....” You don’t know what Chara’s parents really thought or wanted, and nobody ever will, and as far as you’re concerned, that’s for the best, that their parents aren’t around anymore to say what they really felt. But Chara thinks they loved them. So you plunge on. “Maybe your parents did care about you, but they still hurt you. Their feelings don’t erase that.”

“And they should have known better!” Papyrus adds, before Chara can object—why they would, you don’t understand, but you’re glad Papyrus rolls right over their chance. “They are older, and have more experience! And! Therefore! The relationship between parent and child is not equal: Your parents are supposed to take care of you! Without asking anything in return!”

Chara’s still giggling as they raise their head to look at Papyrus. The little noises seem to squirm out of them without any awareness on Chara’s part. Their eyes are wide, their mouth hanging open even while pulled back in a pained smile, and their whole body trembles. “Should have known better?” they echo. Their voice has gone high and brittle.

Papyrus nods firmly. There’s something fragile in his smile, but not his voice, as he continues confidently. “You are a very capable young boss monster, your majesty! But you are not an adult, and so! You cannot assume equal responsibility in what happens between you and your parents, who are—who were adults! In fact! I would say that you cannot claim any responsibility!” He crosses his arms, nodding again, as if that lends veracity to his words. “That is my opinion, but it is also the truth! And a fact!”

Chara’s giggles don’t stop, and their breathing doesn’t slow. Their head drops again, and then the rest of them follows, as they sink to their knees in the snow. Their laughter is the sharp edges of shattered china, and their voice cuts itself on the shards. “I feel  _ sick_.” 

Papyrus turns to you, his teeth pressed together and his fingers curling and uncurling helplessly, and he looks as lost as you feel. Chara keeps laughing, bent double, their long ears nearly brushing the snow with each agonized bark of laughter. 

You gingerly close the gap between you, and clumsily drop to your knees next to them. Immediately the cold of the snow seeps through your pajama pants, and you can’t keep your teeth from chattering a little bit. Now that you’re next to them, though, you don’t know what to do or what to say. Hugging them, telling them it will be okay—somehow, you doubt they’d appreciate such trite attempts at comfort. You’re cold and tired and you don’t want to be here, watching Chara dissolve into hysterics because you and Papyrus think their parents were awful people who deserved to die. (Well, probably Papyrus doesn’t think that last part, but you do.) You wish there was a quick, easy way to calm them down, even as you’re berating yourself for being so selfish. Aren’t real friends supposed to not mind helping each other when one of them is sad? Aren’t real friends supposed to  _ know  _ how to help each other?

—Except. Right. They’re not your friend. Somehow, you forgot.

You kneel with them in the snow as their giggles slowly subside. It takes ages. You check your cell phone more than once while you wait, but there’s no missed calls or texts, so probably your parents haven’t woken up to find you missing. It’s only a little past three AM, though, so you’d be more surprised if they  _ were _ awake. By the time Chara can take a wheezy breath and  _ not _ let it out in a miserable cackle, it’s been nearly fifteen minutes; your shins and toes have gone numb, and you can’t stop your teeth from chattering at all anymore. 

When the sound of your teeth hitting each other is the only noise being made between the two of you, they raise their head. Their eyebrows draw in as they look at you, as though they hadn’t even known you were next to them—or else they’re confused by why your teeth are clattering uncontrollably around in your mouth. 

Their eyes go wide, then, and heat washes over you before you recognize the surprise on their face. “I’m sorry,” they whisper in a rush, dropping their hands from their arms, only to grab yours. Their soft fingers wrap lightly around your own, and their paw pads are still cold, even as the rest of you basks in warmth that seeps through every part of you—your bones and skin and flesh and blood all. The snow around you is melting, leaving a circle of muddy earth, and even that quickly dries. It’s like you have your own perfect ray of sunshine, focused just on you.

You don’t think you can say ‘it’s okay.’ You don’t even know what they’re sorry for—having emotions? Disagreeing with you and Papyrus? Forgetting you get cold easier than they do? They don’t  _ need _ to be sorry for the first two, and you don’t want to make them feel bad for the third. 

“Don’t worry about it,” you say, and even that feels incorrect, but you don’t know how to fix it. “Let’s… do you want to keep going?”

They smile, and you know the answer is no. But instead of answering your question and telling you what they want, they reply, “Might as well.” They keep their grip on your hand as they rise.

You almost end up pulling them back down on top of you when you try to stand up, but somehow, between the two of you, you make it to your feet as well.

It’s not long to the ruins now, you think. You don’t know what they’ll do when they see Frisk—they’re angry, but also… 

“Thank you, Asriel,” they whisper, so quietly you almost don’t hear it under the crunch of snow as you both begin to walk down the path to the ruins once more.

None of you attempt conversation again, and you reach the door in silence. You and Chara come to a stop a few feet away, and then they drop your hand to take the last few steps alone. They reach up, placing their palms flat on the smooth stone. In front of the tall, stone slabs, with grand doorframes carved into the cave itself, in your borrowed clothes and with their little tail hanging limply—monster or no, monarch or no, they look like a little kid.

“I can’t open it,” they say, still facing the door. “I told you.”

“Your majesty.” Papyrus comes to stand next to you, but Chara doesn’t turn to face either of you. “I know that you don’t think you can do it. But I believe in you! If you try, I think you might surprise yourself!”

“Papyrus,” Chara says. They lean into the door, resting their forehead against the stone. If Frisk were to do the same, their horns would tap against the door, but Chara’s, slanted backward, don’t quite touch it. “I can’t. Even if Frisk  _ weren’t _ boosting their magic with the old king and queen’s spells. They’ve always been more determined than me. They’re stronger than me.” They exhale, heavy with defeat. “There’s no point in pretending anymore.”

“That isn’t true at all!”

Chara’s fingers curl, their claws scraping roughly against the stone. Papyrus continues, barrelling on and seemingly oblivious to their distress. Probably Chara thinks he  _ is _ that clueless, because they can’t see his face, his smile that looks about as solid as jello. 

“You’ve always been just as strong as Frisk! But! You’ve also been more frightened!”

“I’m not scared of them!” Chara says, quickly. It would be more convincing of a statement if it weren’t whimpered into a stone door. For all that Frisk told you Chara won’t say things that aren’t true, you’re pretty sure that’s a blatant lie.

It’s a lie you like to tell yourself, too, so you’re not going to call them out on it.

But Papyrus agrees. “Not of them,” he nods. “You’re scared of your magic!”

Chara turns, slowly, until they halfway face the two of you. One of their hands drops, dragging their claws down the door’s surface. They’re still slumped with most of their weight on the door, but the curve of their shoulders and the spacing of their feet betray their tension.

Undaunted by the sidelong glare of Chara’s large eyes, Papyrus goes on. “It’s not a bad thing to be a little afraid of what your magic can do. That kind of power needs to be respected! You can’t ever forget that it’s capable of great harm, or else you misuse it!” It’s now that Papyrus, finally, can no longer hold up his smile. He at least holds Chara’s gaze, not looking away as he tells them, “But you’re  _ too _ scared of it, and Frisk’s not scared enough. They thought that being brave meant never admitting they were afraid, and so they stopped being honest with themself when they were scared. But! Being brave is the opposite! It’s admitting things are scary, and going forward anyway!”

Chara stares at Papyrus a moment longer, before they shuffle back to facing the door, laying their forehead against it. “Is this your way of telling me to quit complaining and open the door?”

“I haven’t heard you complaining at all! So there’s no reason I would be telling you to stop!” From someone else, you might think that kind of statement to carry an unpleasant implication, to mean the opposite of what’s said. But from Papyrus, you and Chara both know he means it sincerely and genuinely. “This is my way of telling you that you are stronger than you think, and also, stronger than your fear!”

“You’re too much,” Chara mumbles into the door. But they place their other hand back on the flat stone, their fingertips just below the lower triangles of the Delta Rune carved into it. Without preamble, their fingers splay out, and a warm, golden glow lights up under their paw pads. 

And then they fall forward, as the door swings open, no longer supporting their weight. 

They catch themself before they land flat on their face, stumbling a few steps until they regain their footing, their arms held out to balance them. Once they’re sure of themself again, they straighten, and you can only assume they’re looking down the long, narrow corridor of cracked bricks and purple shadows. 

“No,” they whisper. 

You’re not prepared for them to take off down the corridor, that soft syllable the only warning you get before they bolt. They run, at first like you, on two legs, but they’ve hardly gone any distance at all before they pitch forward, catching themself on their hands and tearing down the hallway on all fours. 

“Chara!” Papyrus yells, racing after them. Your mouth snaps shut, and you run too, pumping your legs as fast as you can, your sneakers pounding on the floor with enough force to send painful shocks through the arches of your feet. Even so, you’re slower than both monsters, and you fall behind quickly. Chara’s already darting up the stairs, Papyrus yelling for them to wait, and you suck in air through your grit teeth, willing yourself to go faster. 

You hit the first step at the same time you hear Chara’s voice tear through the ruined castle, an anguished and enraged scream that rips right through your chest. You scramble up the stairs with renewed haste, but each step seems to take an eon to climb, every second of Chara’s agonized wail drawn out as you clumsily stumble up the stairs. When finally you reach the top, you’re met with the sight of Papyrus trying to guide them away from the doorway to Frisk’s room. Their mouth hangs open as they cry, their eyes squeezed shut, their hands raised helplessly in trembling fists. Their cheeks are dry, despite the broken keening that continues to stab jaggedly through your ears and into your blood.

“Don’t you dare!” Chara shrieks, and their fangs shred the words into little pieces as they shake their head. You don’t think they’re talking to either you or Papyrus. “Don’t leave me alone like this!”

Papyrus glances to you, and shakes his head, leading Chara past you and toward the remains of the front door, getting them out of the old castle. You watch them go, Chara completely unaware of their surroundings, blindly following Papyrus’s touch at their elbow and shoulder as he directs them out the door. You can hear their wailing fade, both as they run out of breath and Papyrus leads them further away. Between wordless yells, they’re still shouting, enraged; you hear their voice break and crash against the anger of their words, “You stupid coward! I hate you!”

You look away from where they disappeared, down the hallway where you know Frisk’s room to be, as well as their mom’s. You should probably follow Papyrus and Chara—you can try to help, and Papyrus can tell you what’s happened to upset them. 

As if you don’t already suspect you know what they’ve found. 

Instead, with rising trepidation, you take one cautious step toward Frisk’s room, and then another. Nothing happens, save that the floorboards creak under your shoes, and at that slow pace, you make your way to the door. It’s open, so all you have to do is take that last step to place you at the threshold, and then you can look in. 

It’s clear that Frisk’s been through here. The vase of wilted flowers has been overturned, and now lies in small, sharp pieces; the water-damaged cookbook has been completely destroyed, pages torn out and scattered across the floor. The bedding’s been dragged out from against the wall, and the blankets are shredded, some of the scraps of fabric no bigger than a washcloth. Likewise, the pile of clothing is now nothing more than useless rags of pink and blue.

You don’t notice it, at first. It’s not the thick layer coating every surface that you saw in Chara’s home, but instead lightly sprinkled in messy arcs across the floor. It clings, glittering, to the ripped edges of torn up shirts and bedsheets, and it pools in the curve of a particularly large shard of the vase. You stagger backward, bile rising sharp in your throat; you whirl around, and you notice, now, the shimmering grains in the hall at your feet, a scattered trail from Frisk’s room to their mom’s. 

Frisk was here. Frisk came this way, and locked the door behind them, and destroyed their room, and now there’s dust on everything. There’s dust _ everywhere. _ Chara’s distant, enraged screams still echo through the ruins—”I wish you’d done this sooner!”—and you shiver. Your fingers are numb, and your breath rattles in your ears in harmony to Chara’s shouting. 

You should go. 

There’s not nearly as much dust here as there was in the room where Chara tried to kill you. The sparkling trail leads to their mom’s room, and you can only assume there’s more in there. 

How much do you have to find before you know you won’t find Frisk?

You should definitely, absolutely leave here and go to Chara and Papyrus. 

You can’t feel your legs as they take you down the hallway. Those limbs are distant, floating thousands of feet below you. The door creaks loudly when it opens, but nobody is going to hear it. The room that must have belonged to Frisk’s mom is far better furnished than their own. A giant bed—queen-sized, or maybe even king—rests in one corner, the mattress held up by an ornate wooden bedframe. You wonder if the thick gouges in the wood were always there, or if Frisk or even their mom is responsible. A large, wooden armoire lies face-down on the floor; you can see the shape of it left on the wall, clear of the accumulated dirt that darkens the surrounding wallpaper. Did it fall recently, or has it been like that for a long time? Did Frisk, in their anger, do this? There’s a desk against the wall next to the armoire; its drawers have been pulled out and demolished, their remains scattered on the floor amongst pieces of what used to be a chair. 

Like Frisk’s room, everything is coated lightly with dust. The floor, the former chair and desk drawers, the armoire—actually, no. The back of the armoire is clear, though swirls of dust disappear under it, and you conclude it must have fallen  _ after. _ And the mattress is hardly touched, but there’s more dust on the floor around the bed than anywhere else.

You should go get Papyrus. You should call for help.

You gulp down your rising nausea. Next to the bed, there’s very few places to step that won’t leave footprints in the dust. It clings to your shoes as you approach. You brace yourself with one hand on the mattress, and, shaking, lower yourself to your knees. You try to bend over without putting a hand on the floor, but you feel your balance going and have to reach out to support yourself after all. The dust sticks to your fingers and palm, liquid-smooth as it smears across the floor under your hand. You bite your cheek, breathe loudly through your nose, pretend that the high pitched noise in the back of your throat  _ isn’t _ a whimper, and bend down until you can finally see under the bed. 

You think it might have been impossible to see them, if not for the silvery grains reflecting what little light makes it under the bed, outlining their silhouette. More details become visible as you stare, horrified; you know you need to get up and get Papyrus  _ right now_, and yet all you can do is look at them, your breath going shallow. 

The voluminous sleeves of their formal robe have been torn to ribbons. There’s dust clinging to the edges of the shredded fabric where it falls over their arms. Their face is buried in their forearms; their claws, curled loosely over their head, are completely covered in silver. 

“Papyrus,” you yell, but it comes out in a rasping whisper instead. You pull yourself up with your hand that’s still on the bed, holding your other as far away from you as your arm can manage. When you make it to your feet, your pants from the knees down are coated thickly. “Papyrus,” you try again; your voice is weak, quavering and small. 

You run, stumbling, from the room.

“Papyrus!” you yell, your shouts rising to compete with Chara’s. “Papyrus, help!” You can hardly coordinate your wobbling legs beneath you, and, off balance, you lurch into the wall as you try to run down the hallway. “I found them!” 

You’re still tripping every other step, careening back and forth and falling over the broken remains of the door and accidentally flattening mushrooms beneath your sneakers when you see Papyrus and Chara running to meet you. You can tell from their expressions that they see the dust all over your shins and hand and wherever else it’s gotten, but you don’t have time for that. “I found Frisk!”

“Where?” Chara demands, and their face is only inches from yours, their hands squeezing your shoulders painfully. “Where are they!?” 

“Ow!” You try to wiggle out of their grip, bringing up your clean hand to push at one of their arms, but their claws press into your skin as their grip only tightens. “You’re hurting me!” 

“Where’s Frisk?!” they yell, and you can feel the heat of their breath on your face. 

“Their mom’s room under the bed!” you whine, forcing the words out as quickly as you can, and immediately Chara lets you go, hurtling past you and into the ruined castle. If not for Papyrus’s quick reflexes, you’d have fallen, off balance from being released so suddenly. He makes sure you’re able to stand on your own before running after Chara. 

Left behind once more, you rub at one of your shoulders, which pulse with an ache left behind in the shape of Chara’s paws.

When you return to the room at the end of the hallway, you see Chara lifting up the bed at one end, holding the bedframe over their head so that Papyrus can carefully pick Frisk up. Chara’s eyes are fixed on Frisk’s limp form as Papyrus gathers them into his arms. The whites of Chara’s eyes are frightened circles, entirely visible around their irises. They work their lower lip between their fangs, and you can see where the wood of the bedframe has splintered under their claws. 

Papyrus rises to his feet in a smooth motion, Frisk held in his arms, one hand under their knees and one under their back. Princess style, you think, but Frisk wouldn’t like that term, probably. Their head lolls back, and Papyrus adjusts them so that their head rests against his shoulder instead of hanging limply. Now that they’re no longer in the darkness under their bed, you can see them more clearly. Though their closed eyes look the same as always, something in their expression has relaxed, and instead of that blank facade, they look… at ease. 

How horrible is it, you think, that this is the most peaceful you’ve ever seen them, unconscious after seriously injuring themself and hiding away so they could finish bleeding out and die without anyone noticing? 

Your breath sticks in your throat when you notice their ears. Like the torn ends of their sleeves, the thin skin at the tips is split apart into ribbon-like strips, spilling yet more trails of dust onto their shoulders—you remember Frisk tugging at their ears, their claws digging in and disappearing into the messy fur—

“Chara,” Papyrus says. They drop the bedframe without warning, and you flinch at the bang when it lands on the floor, sending up a small cloud of dust. Now everyone’s feet will be covered in the stuff. “Are you able to heal them?”

You almost expect Chara to laugh at that, for their upset giggling to return, but maybe they’re all out, because they simply shake their head. “I can’t.”

“Even a little will help.” Papyrus is terrifyingly serious, his normal exuberance absent. “We don’t know how long they’ve been like this.”

Chara’s brows draw together, and they wring their hands. Their eyes dart from Frisk in Papyrus’s arms, to you, and then their own trembling fingers. “I can’t,” they repeat. “It won’t work. I’ll just make them worse. I’m…” Their whisper trails off, and they gulp and squeeze their eyes shut. “I’m so angry at them!” they hiss. “I wish they  _ were _ dead! They made us all worry, and now  _ I _ have to take care of them!?”

Is that also part of how their magic works? In order to hurt someone, they have to will it, to hate, to want to cause harm. It only makes sense for any healing ability to also be tied to their feelings. 

(In order to hurt themself this much, did Frisk also…?)

“It’s not fair!” Chara chokes out. Their shoulders heave, though you don’t hear them sob. “Why do _ I  _ have to be the one to save them?!”

It’s no wonder they’re afraid that if they try to help, they might finish the job instead.

Papyrus doesn’t know how to answer them. You don’t think anything you can say will help, either. You could point out the obvious—that you can’t do anything to help Frisk, and apparently Papyrus can’t either, or else he wouldn’t ask, which leaves Chara—but, you know saying that wouldn’t help. It’s still not fair. Nothing changes that fact. 

Chara’s loud breaths fill the room. You can’t hear Frisk breathing, or see their chest move, but—they’re  _ not  _ dead, are they? Not yet. The can’t be. If they were, they wouldn’t—they wouldn’t have left a body. If they were, you would have found nothing but dust. That’s how monsters work, right? Isn’t that why Chara thought you were too late?

But, for better or worse, you got here just in time, and Frisk’s still hanging on. 

They could say no. You wonder if it’s occurred to them. They don’t have to keep doing this—they don’t have to keep fighting to keep Frisk around. If they don’t try to heal Frisk—you’re pretty sure Papyrus wouldn’t ask them unless he thought there was no other choice. He doesn’t think that you have enough time to find another monster who can help. 

Chara doesn’t  _ have _ to save them.

You’re definitely a bad person for even thinking about this. Shouldn’t you be trying to encourage Chara to help? Frisk could  _ die. _ Even if they’re not your friend, their life is on the line; what kind of person wouldn’t try to save them?

They tried to kill you and Chara. Why should you have to help them, now? They would have  _ caused _ your death; why should you try to prevent theirs? Or would that make you just as bad as them?

“I’m so scared, Frisk,” Chara whispers, so soft you wonder if you misheard. They raise their head, their lip trembling, as they open their eyes to look at the monster in Papyrus’s arms. “I’m not ready for you to leave. I’m not ready to say goodbye.” Their hands shake violently, quaking with enormous tremors as they bring them apart, summoning up a sputtering golden flame. 

“It’s going to be okay,” Papyrus promises. “I believe in you!” The fire nearly goes out, then, and Papyrus’s teeth click with how quickly he shuts his mouth. Chara narrows their eyes and bites their lip, and the little tongue of flame flickers and swells back to its former size. As you watch, the center of the volatile fire begins to darken, and then a spot of green appears in it, spreading outward and burning through the flame. It takes several long seconds for the cool green to consume every spot of vibrant gold, but eventually, the fire between Chara’s palms has shifted colours entirely. The shaking of their hands has lessened, but not disappeared; they cup the flame and lift their arms, urging it to float up toward Frisk. 

You’re afraid to so much as breathe, in the case the sound disturbs Chara’s concentration. The green fire hovers just over Frisk’s chest, and then sinks down into the Delta Rune on their robe.

The last few sparks of flame licking at the air flash white and gold, and Chara’s breath catches. The magic dissipates instantly, but Frisk’s body goes tense, a miserable whimper worming its way through their teeth. Chara backpedals rapidly, not stopping until they hit the wall behind them, their mouth parted over teeth grit tight with worry. Once again Frisk goes limp, and from the way their face smoothes out, you’re pretty sure they’re still unconscious.

“You did it!” Papyrus cheers, beaming. Chara stares, disbelieving, for several long seconds. Then, their nose pinches, their chin wrinkles as their mouth twists in a grimace, and the fur on their forehead goes funny as their brows draw in. When they blink, tears rush down their cheeks, the heavy droplets leaving thick trails in their wake. Chara sniffs, and more tears fall. They bury their face in their hands, and you can hear their muffled, wordless wails.

Papyrus’s smile freezes, and he looks to you, completely lost. Without a word, you go to Chara’s side, placing a tentative hand on their shoulder. Immediately you find yourself supporting their entire weight, and they grab your pajama top in their fists, pressing their face against your shoulder and sobbing. Even though they’re leaning on you entirely, they don’t weigh nearly as much as you expected; if Frisk is this light too, it’s no wonder Papyrus can pick them up and hold them for so long with ease.

You can’t check your phone like this, so you resign yourself to your fate and bring your arms up around the monster clinging to you. You think you hear them apologizing in between sobs, which makes you feel like even more of a jerk for being so impatient. Of course they’re going to be upset. You awkwardly try to rub circles on their back, and they continue to cry into your shirt.

You have no way of knowing how long this goes on. You’d think that Chara would be too tired to cry by now—you know you are—but every time you think they might be winding down, a fresh surge of sobs erupts. When at last you hear boots stomping down the hall, you’ve never been more relieved to hear Undyne’s abrasive voice, as she shouts, “What the he—”

Her demand cuts off abruptly as she enters the room and takes in the sight of Chara crying in your arms, Frisk unconscious in Papyrus’s, and dust everywhere, including on all four of you, to varying degrees. She gapes, that jaw full of sharp teeth hanging open incredulously, and Chara presses their face into your shoulder that much more, trying to muffle their next loud sniffle. It doesn’t work, and Undyne’s glare lands on the two of you, her attention caught by the sound.

Unexpectedly, her face softens, and she approaches you with slow, careful steps. “Hey,” she says, dropping to one knee when she’s next to you. “I don’t know what happened, but you can tell me later. For now, let’s get you out of here.”

Chara nods, still hiding in your shirt. Undyne sets her hand on their head, more gently than you’d thought her capable, and she ruffles their fur and their ears. “Come on, then,” she coaxes, and Chara’s slowly convinced to let you go. Light as they are, Undyne picks them up with ease, balancing them on one hip, and their arms go loosely around her neck. They’re able to hide their face in the crevice between her shoulder and their arm. 

You expect her to stand up, then, so it’s a surprise when her other arm snakes around you. You yelp, but Undyne’s already risen in the time it took you to realize what was happening, and you have to hold tight to her broad shoulder in order to avoid falling. You think about demanding that she put you down, but as she carries you out of the room, Papyrus following, you let your objections go unsaid. 

Your legs dangle with each step Undyne takes, and her hold on you is firm, her strong arms showing no sign of giving out. The motion of her steady stride is soothing, and you let your head rest against her shoulder, your gaze settling on Chara, in Undyne’s other arm. Though you can’t see their face, you can hear them breathing slowly, with shaky, wet noises. Every so often, a little tremor runs through them. 

Now that you’re no longer standing, exhaustion quickly hits you. You don’t know at all what time it is anymore, but if Undyne’s come to find you, does that mean your parents also know you’re not home?

You close your eyes.


	4. Even A Worm

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Tear your heart out for what you done   
>  They ain't gonna catch you when you fall   
>  You'll be pleading [while you're bleeding](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=4s3b5OR2YhE)

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Here we are, friends. The last chapter of this AU for a little while--I'm planning to hop back over to do some more work on Pierce the Heavens, after this one. 
> 
> This has been an exciting fic to write, and I hope everyone has enjoyed it. Or cried. One or the other.
> 
> As always, **look at the tags before proceeding.** I haven't added any since chapter 3, but. Just in case. Reiterating that Asriel is AN ASSHOLE here, and his remarks on mental health are _not_ good ones.
> 
> One last note.
> 
> I learned a few different things writing this fic, and I'd like to talk about some of that.
> 
> When i started this AU, and designed my version of human Asriel, I made some decisions about his cultural background for perhaps shallow reasons. I wanted him to stand out from other human Asriels I’d seen, and I wanted him to be isolated from peers his age, in a manner similar-to-but-different-from the isolation that canon Asriel may have experienced as the prince. So, not only did I choose to make him the son of the town Mayor, but I chose to make this Asgore Jewish and Toriel Muslim. Asriel’s parents love each other fully and completely, and in addition to not asking each other to change their religion, they don’t want to force Asriel to chose a certain path, either. Every person’s relationship with their religion, their god, and their heritage is a personal and private relationship, that doesn’t need someone else’s influence or judgment. 
> 
> In writing the fic, I wound up doing a lot of research to see how these decisions would affect Asriel, and I learned a lot more than I expected. I learned—or was reminded—that there’s no one way that everyone practices their religion. I learned that choosing to make Asgore Jewish meant that Asriel would feel doubt about his heritage, because Judaism is matrilineal; I learned that choosing to make Toriel Muslim meant that her decision to marry Asgore carried much more weight than I had initially thought. 
> 
> I learned how much it meant to some readers who disclosed to me that they had things in common with my Asriel, in terms of religious or cultural or racial heritage and identity. 
> 
> And I was reminded of how little I know. How much I need to work harder to listen & be aware of the experiences of people who have cultures different from my own. How much I'm still going to fuck it up!
> 
> And now. 
> 
> Now, I am a citizen of the united states, and I am seeing the terrible news stories that are becoming more and more abundant. Since the US presidential election, hate crimes have gone up. I see the parents and children at my school, who are POC, and they’re scared. I see fucking _white supremacists_ who _should_ be ashamed of their hate and instead boldly parade it. 
> 
> I don’t know how much any of us can do, but please. If you have friends who are Jewish, who are Muslim, who are black or brown, if they tell you they are scared, please listen. Please don’t try to tell them not to worry, or that things are fine, or that there’s no danger. Please don’t tell them that hate crimes aren’t something they need to worry about. Somebody ran a _fucking truck_ into a synagogue like a month ago. Somebody shot and killed nine people at a bible study group, because even though they were Christians, they weren’t _white_ Christians.
> 
> Instead of telling them not to worry, instead of telling them to relax, instead, please stand with them. Please don’t tolerate hate speech. Please support each other. Support people who aren’t like you, who come from different places than the place you come from. Try to listen, when people describe their life experiences that might be nothing like your own. We’re all on this shit earth together. 
> 
> TL;DR, you all know, in your hearts…  
> Toriel would punch the fuck out of a nazi.  
> She would deck their goddamn lights out.
> 
> Thanks for reading.

When you startle awake, you’re no longer being carried, which is probably for the best. Your blood speeds through your veins, your heart fearfully pounding away in your chest, and you try to calm your breaths. The dream you’re starting to consider ‘the usual nightmare’ is, of course, back, even if some of the roles keep switching. You hate this; you’ve almost always remembered your dreams, and while sometimes they’re stress dreams about school, more often than not you have awesome adventures exploring with aliens or being some kind of wicked cool wizard. You’ve definitely gotten ideas for stories about the Absolute God of Hyperdeath from your dreams before. But it’s two nights in a row—three, if you count that morning right after you’d broken the barrier—is this all you’ll ever have to look forward to when you close your eyes, now? 

You pull back the covers, and only then does your awareness return to your surroundings, as you realize you’ve been tucked in your parents’ bed. Your hoodie and shoes have also been removed, and you’re wearing a different pair of pants. The window curtains are down, but you can see enough light peek through to know that it’s well into morning. 

There goes any hope you may have still held onto of your parents not finding out about your late night excursion. You think about staying in their bed and postponing the talking to that you’re sure to be in for, but when you try to roll over and close your eyes again, your brain helpfully wonders how Frisk and Chara are doing. You grimace as your mind replays last night’s—or this morning’s?—events for you, with extra attention given to everything Chara had yelled in their distress, and just how much dust there had been on Frisk’s claws. On their wrists, and on their neck.

Your hands are both, thankfully, clean. You guess your parents changed your pants for the same reason. All that dust—it might as well have been Frisk’s blood everywhere, and when you think of it like that, your mind replacing the silvery grains in your memory with vibrant red, the state of their home approaches something out of a slasher flick. 

Couldn’t they have tried to off themself in a way that  _ wouldn’t _ be horribly upsetting to whoever had the misfortune to find their remains?

You’re well and awake now, and even if you were still at all tired, you’re not sure you’d want to risk sleeping with something like that at the forefront of your mind. You throw the covers off, and you get up.

The hallway is empty. Your own room, when you silently crack open the door, is also vacant. You take the chance to grab a change of clothes and quickly get dressed, indulging yourself with one of your favourite video game t-shirts. Everything in your life is awful right now, but the heroes in your games never give up when things look bad. You can be strong like that, too.

Yeah, right.

You know that your parents and whatever monsters are here for the day must be on the first floor, so you creep down the stairs as quietly as you can manage. Sure enough, there are voices from the direction of the kitchen—and also your parents’ study. The door to the study is closed, and even if you turn the knob without it making that tell-tale click, you’re sure they’ll notice. But your parents’ voices are both deep enough that if you press your ear right up against the crack between door and doorframe, you can hear most of what they’re saying anyway.

“I don’t think I will be able to trust  _ anyone _ with their well-being,” Mom is saying. “They can’t be any older than Asriel, and they lived for  _ years _ alone. You saw all those monsters when they made their speech! There were so many people who could have helped them, and nobody did. And even if somebody should agree to be their caretaker, will they make sure to get those children the help which they need? I doubt that any of their subjects would dare suggest their monarchs seek therapy.”

So she’s talking about Frisk and Chara. No surprise there. 

“But we’ll have to find some kind of solution,” Dad says. “We can’t put Asriel under that kind of stress.”

There’s a beat of silence; possibly Mom is sighing, a sound a little too quiet to travel through the door. “I don’t know what to do,” she admits. “He is  _ still _ keeping things from us. I am very worried.”

“I know what you mean. I get the feeling that if we asked him about it, he wouldn’t even think twice before agreeing.” You feel your eyebrows furrow in confusion. If they asked you about  _ what? _ “Despite everything, it’s clear how much he likes them. I don’t think I’ve ever seen him so taken with someone his own age before.”

Your face goes hot, and you frown. Dad’s usually good at reading people, but he’s got it all wrong! You fume silently while Mom speaks again. “Exactly,” she’s saying. “I  _ do _ want them to stay, but that would not be fair to Asriel. And I do not think it is good for those two to live together, either. It will have to do for now, but we must figure something out, soon.”

Your jaw drops a little, as you try to process what you’ve just heard. You tackle the easiest part of that statement first: Frisk must be all right after all, if your parents are talking about having them stay here—or, more accurately, why they can’t. The earlier parts of their conversation make more sense now, too; now you know why Mom was discussing her hesitations with trusting someone else with Chara and Frisk’s well-being. And obviously having the two boss monsters under the same roof is a terrible idea.

They’d lived together once before, though, hadn’t they? And neither of them had been happy when that ended. 

It doesn’t matter, though. Your parents are too concerned for  _ your _ well-being for any of that to come to fruition. You’ve tried not to worry them, but they’ve still noticed that you’re not okay. You’ve got to do better.

They’re still talking—you drag your attention back to the conversation, ready to dart away from the door if you hear them approaching, but it sounds like they’re still on the subject of, well, you.

“Other children do things like underage drinking when they wish to give their parents grey hairs,” says Dad. “But not our little Asriel.”

“Please, Gorey,” Mom says, stopping him. “As if anyone would be able to spot grey hairs in all your blond fluff.”

Dad laughs. “Yes, but you’ll be quite striking when you get a few grey streaks!” 

“Gorey!”

Great. They’re just flirting, now.

“But no,” says Mom. “Our little prince not only befriends the most traumatized children I have ever met, but he frees an entire race which we never knew even existed until now.”

“We do have an incredible son, don’t we? What did we do to get such an extraordinary child?”

“Well, he has a fantastic father…”

You push yourself away from the door, sticking your tongue out even though nobody is there to see your disgusted face. You bet they’re doing that thing where they lean in close and rub noses. Your parents are so sappy, it’s  _ gross. _

In your socks, it’s easy to keep quiet as you abandon your eavesdropping and walk down the hall. In the kitchen, Undyne, Papyrus, and Gerson are seated at the table. Gerson’s got his arms crossed, nodding as Undyne and Papyrus describe last night to him.

“I’m not surprised they tried something like this,” Gerson says, shutting his working eye and shaking his head. “You did your best,” he assures Papyrus. “But there’s not much that can stop a determined boss monster.”

“Nothing short of another boss monster,” Undyne says. With her elbows on the table, she rests her forehead in her hands. “Or a human.”

Gerson opens his eye and looks up, then, and your eyes meet. He strokes at his beard, considering. “Or a human,” he agrees. 

You back out of the kitchen before Undyne or Papyrus can notice you, too, and Gerson doesn’t draw attention to your retreat. 

In the living room, the couch bed is still unfolded. You notice Alphys sitting in a folding chair next to it; she looks over her shoulder at you, and smiles weakly, before returning her gaze to the bed. Lying flat on their back, blankets pulled up to their shoulders, is Frisk. 

They look much better, now. Your gaze immediately flies to their ears, which lie turned out on the pillow. The skin is whole and the fur combed neatly. Their face is still peaceful, relaxed and free of tension, and their breaths are steady and deep, their chest rising and falling under the blankets. You can see, just peeking out from under the blanket, that they’re wearing the bright red t-shirt you got from the charity walk where Dad spoke last March. It’s strange, to see Frisk in red. 

Strange, that you already have that kind of expectation of them—that after just a few days, seeing them in a different colour strikes you as off. 

Alphys is resting her hands, palms-up, on the edge of the bed. Above her small, clawed fingers, little green sparks flash, before rolling across the sheets, emerald lightning strikes that race over the lump of Frisk’s torso under the bedding. Unlike Chara’s attempt with their fire, the colour of Alphys’s magic remains uniform throughout, and Frisk doesn’t seem at all disturbed by it. 

There’s movement in your peripheral vision, and you raise your head to see Chara curled up in Dad’s armchair. Their arms are wrapped around their legs, and they’ve raised their head just enough that their eyes peek over their knees, but even that small movement seems to cost them great effort. They haven’t changed out of the makeshift pajamas you’ve lent them. 

Several different options for what you could say drift through your mind. ‘Good morning,’ or, ‘how are you feeling,’ or ‘how is Frisk?’ You can’t see any of those going over well. In the end, all that comes out of your mouth is a pathetically inadequate, “Have you had breakfast?”

They haven’t. Neither has Alphys. You have to brave the Royal Guards in the kitchen, but you manage, and you start boiling the water for oatmeal. Undyne, Papyrus, and Gerson put their conversation on hold while you’re waiting—or, you guess they could have naturally hit a lull, but you decide not to think about it. You’ve eavesdropped enough this morning. 

Alphys comes into the kitchen when you tell her breakfast is ready. “Honestly, t-there’s not much more I can d-do for Frisk,” she says, sitting at the table and staring forlornly at her oatmeal. “E-Even if I c-could keep going all day, t-they’re, p-physically, about as recovered as t-they’re going to be…”

You take Chara’s bowl out to them, and then sit yourself in Alphys’s abandoned chair next to the sofa bed and say your dua. The two of you eat in silence. Several times, you glance up from your oatmeal to Chara, but whenever you look, their eyes are glued to Frisk. 

The sound of the door to your parents’ study opening reaches your ears, and sure enough, you see Mom peek in the living room shortly after. She offers the two of you a small smile, but doesn’t come in, and you think she and Dad are heading to the kitchen to talk with the other adults. You’re proven right, as you soon hear the indistinct murmur of lowered voices from that direction. You twist a little in your chair, wondering if you should go in there and demand to be part of the conversation. You’re involved in this too.

“Alphys is scared they’ve fallen down,” says Chara. 

Your jerk back around to face them, and nearly fall out of the chair for your trouble. They’ve brought their legs down so they can set their half-eaten bowl of oatmeal in their lap. Even though they’re speaking to you, their gaze remains on Frisk. 

“There’s nothing we can do, if that’s the case,” they continue. “We just wait and see if they turn to dust.” You can see, now, the thin smile stretched across their face. 

“We can’t do anything to help?” you ask. From the way Chara’s teeth come together, you’re pretty sure they’re holding back from saying something like, ‘That’s what “nothing we can do” means, idiot.’ “They’ll just… die?”

“Maybe!” Chara shrugs, picking their oatmeal back up. “Maybe last night was just a waste of everyone’s time and effort, after all. Maybe I should have just left, when Papyrus asked me to heal them!” 

They giggle, a short and quiet noise that’s more pained than pleased, and shove a spoonful of oatmeal into their mouth. You look, once more, to the monster in the bed. What if you’d said nothing, when you found them? What if you’d simply turned around and gone out to comfort Chara? It hadn’t occurred to you at the time, but you could have left Frisk to die, as they’d so clearly wanted to do. 

“I’ll never forgive them if they don’t wake up,” Chara says, voice cracking. When you look at them again, there are tears running down their face and into their bowl. “I can’t do this alone.”

You know it’s the wrong thing to say as soon as you open your mouth, but the protests spill out anyway. “You’re not alone! You have Undyne, and Gerson, and Pa—”

“None of them can understand me,” Chara snarls, and you immediately fall silent. Realizing what they’ve done, Chara flinches back, and they drop their eyes to the bowl they once again hold in their lap. “Frisk is my irreplaceable partner,” they say, in a much quieter voice. 

On the sofa bed, Frisk doesn’t move but for the rise and fall of their chest. 

“They haven’t called me that in a long time, though,” Chara goes on. You don’t think they’re actually seeing their unfinished oatmeal as they look down at their lap. “I can’t remember the last time I heard it. They said there was nobody else they’d rather have at their side, but they haven’t even said my  _ name  _ since they tried to kill me.” 

That can’t be true—you’re sure you’ve heard Frisk’s voice, faltering though it might have been, form the rounded syllables of Chara’s name. Haven’t you?

“It’s my fault, though,” Chara says, and you can’t go analyzing every memory of the past two days while you’re trying to listen to them now. “Back when I was trying to make myself hate them—because I knew, I  _ had _ to, I wouldn’t ever be able to beat them as long as I still had any love for them—I tried all sorts of things to hurt them. Fake it til you make it, right? And I thought, if I could make them hate me, it’d be easy to hate them back.” They chuckle ruefully, shaking their head. “I called them useless, moron, idiot—everything you can think of. I told them that every time they opened their mouth, it just made them sound stupid. They were just a dumb idiot who didn’t ever know what they were talking about, and anyone could tell just by listening to them. I said their voice was the most hideous noise in the whole underground.

“I wasn’t paying attention—I was trying not to look at them more than I had to, because it—” They choke on something that could be a sob or a laugh. You wait, and when they recover enough to speak again, they don’t finish that sentence. “So, I didn’t notice right away, that they weren’t talking at _ all  _ anymore. I don’t know when it started, so I don’t know exactly how long it lasted, but I’m pretty sure... it took  _ weeks _ before Papyrus finally got them to talk again. Even with him, though, they wouldn’t say much if they knew I was nearby.”

Apparently finished, they lift their head, smiling weakly at you. They look like they’re waiting for something, but what are you supposed to say to that? 

You’d wondered, though. When Frisk and Chara had given their speech, Frisk had been nearly as articulate as Chara. They’d spoken in full sentences with a clear voice. But otherwise, they use a s few words as possible to get their point across, abandoning names and pronouns when they can rely on context to convey their meaning. 

“You’ve heard them laugh, right?” Chara asks, when it’s clear you don’t know how to respond to their confession. “It’s nothing like when I do. It’s a nice sound. I could… I could listen to them all day. I love their voice. And it’s my fault they don’t ever want to use it.”

Their expression is falling apart, chunks of their composure dropping away with each tear that rolls down their cheeks. Their smile crumbles under the grimace that twists their mouth.

“I don’t want them to die,” they whisper, hunching forward. “I don’t want any of this.”

Your dad is next to them, then; you hadn’t seen or heard him approach, but there he is, taking the bowl from them before it falls, and cautiously setting one hand on their back. “Chara,” he says, kneeling down so he can be at eye level with them. “You have been very vigilant in watching Frisk, but I believe it may be best if you take a break to rest, now.”

“What if they die!?” Chara yells, grabbing at your dad’s arm. “What if I go to bed and they’re not here when I wake up!?”

Dad slowly sets the oatmeal bowl on the coffee table, so that he can lift Chara with both hands. They go limp and boneless as he settles them on his hip, and they rest their head on his shoulder as he rubs their back. Their tail wags, weakly, once, and then a second time, before again hanging lifelessly. You don’t think you’ve ever seen your dad hold another kid like that before. He’s only ever picked you up like that. “There, there,” he murmurs gently. “We will wake you the moment anything changes. But you must keep your own strength up, and you cannot do that unless you care for your own needs, as well.”

They mumble something that might be an objection or an agreement, and you think you also hear, “I’m not a baby, I can walk.” Your dad smiles and adjusts his grip to make sure he’s got a good hold on them, before he heads to the hallway. 

You watch them go, and you lean back in your chair to make sure your mom and the other monsters are still in the kitchen. It’s just you and Frisk, now. You set your own empty bowl on the floor at your feet, and then frown at the boss monster in the bed. The flat lines of their eyes and mouth reveal nothing, and if you didn’t know better, you’d think they were simply in a deep sleep.

“I should tell them you woke up,” you say. 

Frisk flinches. “Don’t,” they rasp. They have to swallow and wet their tongue, before they can add, “Please.”

“Why should I listen to you?” Maybe it’s cruel, to be so relentless with someone who just woke up after trying to kill themself, but you’re not feeling particularly charitable. “You really hurt them.”

A huff of air escapes Frisk’s muzzle. If it were Chara lying there, you’d think they were trying to laugh, but it’s Frisk, and you have no idea what that sound is supposed to mean. “Yeah,” they say. Their voice still comes out as nothing but a whisper, their lungs scraped hollow. “All I ever do.”

“Do you even care?” you demand. It’s hard to keep yourself from shouting; you cross your arms and frown at the TV so you don’t have to look at Frisk. 

“Don’t mean to,” they say. In the TV screen, you can see their reflection still; they’re staring up at the ceiling instead of looking at you. “Don’t wanna hurt them. Don’t wanna get angry. Doesn’t matter. Happens anyway.”

You want to explode at them, to shout at them that they could try harder, if they’re even trying at all. But when you turn back to face them, you see what their nose and mouth had obscured in their reflection; their eyes are open.

They blink, wetly, still looking straight up instead of daring to meet your gaze, and so the tears that spill over fall over their temples and onto their ears. Their irises are big and dark; for a moment, you can’t even pick out their pupils from the brown surrounding them. 

(Their sclera are just as white as Chara’s, or your own.)

“Can’t do anything but hurt people,” they say. “Might as well hurt the person who deserves it.” You’re ready to shout that Chara doesn’t deserve any of it, when Frisk turns their head, resting their cheek on the pillow and facing away from you. “Make it so I can’t hurt anyone ever again.”

You close your mouth.

“Chara knows,” they whisper. They’re shivering, even under the blankets. “I say sorry, then do it again. Never be anything but violent and dangerous. Should’ve never been born. Mom’d be alive. Chara’d be happy.”

“That’s not true,” you rasp. You don’t know what to say next, when so much of Chara’s unhappiness clearly  _ is _ caused by Frisk, but you can at least object to part of it. “It’s not your fault your mom’s—like that.”

“It is!” They turn their head to meet your eyes once more. “I killed her, and I couldn’t accept it, and I made everything  _ worse_.” When they inhale, it’s with short, ragged breaths that scratch at the inside of their mouth. 

“You didn’t!” Frisk never got to read the lab reports with you and Chara, did they? “She knew what would happen!” Your hands form fists, as it really sinks in—their mom had chosen to have them, knowing the risk it apparently posed. ‘I’ll fall down before the barrier is broken anyway, so it doesn’t bother me.’ And then—Frisk had obviously known that they would drain her life as they grew—they’d said as much to you, before—but had she ever tried at all to prepare Frisk for the inevitable future? What there would even have been to say, you don’t know. ‘I’m ready to die, so I figured I might as well be your mom,’ probably wouldn’t have gone over well, but surely she could have said  _ something _ so that they knew they weren’t at fault for her death. 

Or did she only tell them that they had to make her sacrifice worthwhile by winning the war against humans? You think you can make a pretty good guess. “What kind of awful mom lets her kid blame themself for something she decided to do?”

“Shut up!” Frisk hisses. “Mom loved me! Did everything she could for me!”

“She used you to kill herself!”

Frisk presses their mouth shut, but the whimper escapes anyway. You force your fists to loosen, and settle back in your chair, backing out of the aggressive lean toward Frisk that you’d moved into without even thinking. The two of you have kept your voices down, not wanting the rest of the house to hear, but you’re both still breathing hard, as if you’ve been yelling.

“Wasn’t… wasn’t the best mom,” Frisk reluctantly admits. “Sometimes couldn’t get up in the mornings. Forgot to eat, or take care of herself. I had to do a lot of things without her. But she loved me. Did everything she could for me.” They try to smile, but their mouth is apparently too used to its inexpressive, flat shape, and it’s not long before they abandon the effort. “When Chara and I were babies, Chara’s eyes opened before mine. Even though I’m a day older. Mom got so worried. Called Royal Scientist every day. Sans told me… she was scared it was her fault my eyes wouldn’t open. Because my other parent died before I was born. Didn’t know if I’d be okay. Had I absorbed their soul? Scared hers alone wouldn’t be enough.”

You shudder. Your throat is tight, and when you swallow, your mouth is dry. 

“Mom said I was her whole world,” Frisk tells you. Their gaze slides to the side, those dark, dark irises shining wetly. “She loved me, and every day I was alive, I was killing her.”

One of the lumps of bedding on the couch bed moves, and their hand emerges. Their fingers close around the tip of one ear, and you lurch forward before you realize what you’re doing, grabbing them by the wrist. “Stop that!” you hiss.

They wrench their arm free of your grip, rolling onto their side, their back to you, pulling their legs up as they curl up small. They’re shaking, but they keep their hand on their pillow, flexing their fingers and kneading their claws into it instead of into themself. Slowly, you settle back in your chair, but your legs remain tense, your body unwilling to relax. You can still see the side of their face from this angle, though just barely. With their eyes open and their teeth clenched, they look like an entirely different monster.

“Hid under the bed so nobody would find me,” Frisk hisses, bitter. “Wish you’d let me die.”

Their words hit you, and it’s as if you’ve fallen underground all over again, the harsh landing, the realization that you’ve stumbled somewhere you never meant to be. “Chara,“ you whisper. “Chara really cares about you. They would have—”

“Would have gotten over it,” Frisk cuts you off. “Would have been happier without me. ‘M not really the greatest person. You—” They have to sniff, and recover their voice, before they can continue. “You’re the type of friend they always wished they had. Can call me ‘partner,’ all they want. Doesn’t change how scared they are.” They shudder, whimpering, “I hate it. I hate hearing them say ‘partner’ when they look at me like that!” 

“So you think that because I’m here for them, it’s fine if you’re dead?” you demand, incredulous. Frisk doesn’t nod or say anything, but it’s confirmation enough that they don’t contradict you. “They saved your life!” you yell, shocked at the snarl in your own voice. “They’re the one who healed you!”

Frisk screams back into their pillow, “They shouldn’t have!” 

“Frisk! You’re awake!”

Their eyes go huge, before squeezing shut, but thanks to the two of you raising your voices at each other, they’ve been found out. Papyrus rushes into the living room, hovering on the other side of the bed where he can get a good look at Frisk’s face. “We were all so worried!” he says, hopping from foot to foot anxiously. 

“I’m sorry I worried you.” Their voice is once again bland and insipid, the bitterness with which they spoke to you completely absent. Papyrus might reply, but you don’t hear whatever he says over your own rising fury.

Papyrus gets an apology right away. Yesterday, too, they said sorry to Mettaton as soon as they’d let go of him. They’d even apologized to Chara for something as small as going through their room to bring them fresh clothes. 

“You really don’t care, do you?” A tremor runs through Frisk, their entire body flinching under your quiet accusation. Anything Papyrus was saying comes to an abrupt stop, as Frisk curls up even smaller, the curve of their spine tightening, their fingers twitching. “You say you don’t want to hurt anybody, but that doesn’t mean anything, does it? You’re not really sorry at all.”

You don’t see Frisk’s reaction. You’re on your feet and storming out of the room as soon as the last word has left your mouth. 

You don’t hear anything, either, and it just makes you angrier. They could at least call out after you, or cry, or pretend that your words had any kind of effect on them.

Glaring at the floor, you’re not looking where you’re going—and it’s your own house, so it’s not like you need to—but in your haste, you stomp right into Mom. She catches you by the shoulders as you stumble back, and when you look up at her, it’s to meet a very disappointed frown. 

“Asriel Dreemurr,” she says, her voice low and stern. Guilt gathers heavy in your gut. “You and I are going to have a talk.”

As she leads you to the study, you see that Gerson and Alphys are joining Papyrus in the living room. You don’t see Undyne, and assume she’s either still in the kitchen, or she’s gone upstairs to keep watch over Chara while they sleep. Maybe somebody should go let Chara know that Frisk has woken up. But, even though Dad promised to let them know as soon as anything changed with Frisk, if Chara came downstairs right now… 

It might be better to let them rest for a while longer. 

“Asriel,” Mom says, as she pulls the door shut behind you. “Why did you say such a thing to Frisk?”

Her tone lets you know she won’t accept any excuses, but experience lets you know she also wants to hear the answer, whatever it might be. She’s not assuming she knows why you feel the way you do, and she wants to hear it from you. Even though you’re reluctant to tell her, at least she’ll actually listen. 

“Because it’s true,” you whine, knowing it petulant even as you look down and to the side. “They’re  _ not _ sorry about hurting me and Chara.”

“And how do you know what they are or are not sorry for?”

You frown up at her. Is she seriously suggesting that they  _ are _ sorry? It’s obvious they’re not. “They haven’t even apologized,” you grumble, crossing your arms. “They’ve said sorry to Mettaton, and Papyrus, but not me. They act like they regret hurting everyone, but when it’s me, they act like nothing ever happened!”

Mom nods. “And have you asked them to apologize?”

You haven’t, but. “I shouldn’t have to ask! If they were really sorry, they’d say so! And they didn’t say sorry for almost hurting  _ you_, either!”

“Inside voice, please,” Mom reprimands, and your mouth snaps shut. She lets you stew in embarrassment for a couple of seconds, before she speaks again. “Asriel. You do deserve an apology from them. You were hurt, and your anger is understandable. But you cannot tell them how they feel, or what they do or do not care about. Only they know that.” She breathes deeply, as if gathering her patience, and you know better than to take advantage of the brief silence to try to defend yourself. “My child… you understand that your friends have been deeply hurt, and for a long time, do you not? They will need help and support in ways that you or I may not.”

“But—”

“It is not,” she says, firmly rolling over your interruption, “an excuse for their actions. But they will need patience and understanding. Especially now, after what has happened. Accusing them of being insincere in their desire to do better will not help them recover. They deserve an apology from you, too.”

You gape at her, but her expression does not change. How can she be serious? Maybe you shouldn’t have said what you said, but they  _ tried to kill you. _ It’s not the same at all!

Something in Mom’s face softens, and she puts a hand on your shoulder. “Even when they apologize, it does not mean you have to forgive them,” she says. “Only you know how much you were hurt. Only you can decide if you are able to forgive them. But that does not give you free reign to be cruel, and you must own up to your actions.”

It’s difficult when your parents are so  _ reasonable. _ You can’t keep being angry at her. And, maybe you did go too far—if Frisk truly didn’t care that they kept hurting people, they probably…

They probably wouldn’t have tried to kill themself. 

“I don’t understand, though,” you say. Mom nods at you, and you continue. “They  _ keep _ hurting people. If they really don’t want to, then how come they keep doing it?”

Mom purses her lips, thoughtful, before she replies. “Sometimes, when you are walking to one class at school, do you ever turn down the wrong hall and go to another, because you are used to a certain path?” You nod, confused as to why she’s asking. “It is your muscle memory. The more we do something, the easier it becomes to do so without even thinking. Frisk’s anger may be like that. They have walked that path so often, that they do so even when they do not wish to. It is not an easy thing to overcome without help. Even if they do not wish to give in to their anger, without someone to show them a different way, they will have difficulty succeeding.”

“When you say help, you mean therapy.” You don’t intend to sound scornful, but from the way your mom looks at you, some disdain comes out in your voice anyway. 

“In part, yes.” She’s got that familiar expression that means you’re not going to like what she has to say next. “It is true that I will be calling a therapist later today to see how soon we can schedule appointments for both Frisk and Chara. And, Asriel. I would like for you to speak to someone, as well.”

Therapy. Your mom thinks you need therapy. “I’m  _ fine_,” you protest, quickly, and Mom’s face goes soft and sad, and you take a step backward. You don’t need to talk to a counselor, or therapist, or whatever kind of doctor she thinks you should see. You’re not—you recognize the thought as unfair, even as you have it—you’re not like Chara or Frisk. You’re not so messed up that every little thing sends you into hysterics, you’re not trying to  _ kill yourself_—

“It is no different from someone who has broken their legs and needs to rebuild their muscles to walk again undergoing physical therapy, after weeks in a wheelchair,” Mom says. It  _ is_, though, and you  _ know _ everyone at school’s going to find out, and you don’t need yet another thing for them to laugh at—you’re already stupid, spoiled, crybaby Asriel. You don’t want to be  _ crazy  _ Asriel, too! “It does not mean there is anything wrong with you. But I think it will be helpful for you to be able to talk with someone, about everything that has happened, and how you feel.”

“I don’t need therapy,” you mutter, one last, token protest. Mom can say whatever she wants, but it’s clear she does think there’s something wrong with you. Something’s wrong and you need to be fixed. You hate it. 

“Humour your mother. I am an old lady who worries too much,” Mom says. It’s an attempt at humour, but neither of you smile. “If nothing else, you can think of it as a way to support Chara and Frisk. We do not know how they will react, but they may be more open to the idea if they see that you are willing to try.”

She knows you too well; the thought that Chara and Frisk may need you to go with them in solidarity makes the idea of going yourself easier to stomach. Only a little, though. She opens her arms for a hug, and even though you don’t like any of this, you lean into her embrace. Her fingers run through your hair, and you close your eyes. 

“Are Chara and Frisk staying with us?” you ask. Her hand stills, and you press on. If you say it, she and Dad don’t have to worry about putting you on the spot by asking you. They don’t have to try to figure out something else, when there’s a solution that works right here, as long as you’re not causing a problem. “I want them to stay.”

“For now,” she affirms, resuming carding her fingers through your hair. “It is not a permanent solution. But Frisk should not be left alone, and so having them stay here is the best option for the time being.”

“I don’t mind if they stay,” you say. 

“We’ll see,” is her response. “It is a lot to think about.” That’s probably as far as you can push things, for now, and so you relax against her. Your mom is really the best for hugs—she’s taller than other moms, and broader and stronger, too. She squeezes just right, and she’s warm and comfortable to lean on. 

When you straighten, she puts her hands on your shoulders and regards you. “My little prince,” she says, fondly. “You are very strong, and very kind.” She presses a kiss to your forehead. “I love you.”

“Love you too, Mom,” you mumble. 

You leave the study together, but you don’t really want to go back to the living room, where you’re pretty sure Papyrus is telling Frisk how much he’s glad they’re okay and he’s not mad or upset, and generally being the good and kind person Frisk needs supporting them right now. You tell Mom you’re going upstairs to use the bathroom, and it’s not a lie. You didn’t go when you first woke up, and also, you could do with brushing your teeth after breakfast. Besides which, you’re not above hiding in the bathroom to avoid everyone and installing games on your cell phone to pass the time.

You’re eager to put everything that’s happening in your home out of your mind, and so you’re quick to get absorbed in thoughts of what games you’ll put on your new phone, and which ones from the old phone you won’t bother redownloading. You’re so focused that you don’t hear the running water until after you’ve shut the bathroom door behind you and looked up to find yourself staring at Chara sitting in the bathtub. 

Even though the water’s on and their clothes are in a pile on the floor, they’re not holding soap or shampoo, and unless monsters bathe by lighting themselves on fire, you’re pretty sure Chara’s not in the tub to get clean. Suspended in a circle midair and surrounding them, little golden fires hover; wrapped around their neck and wrists, spiraling up their arms and over their back, are shimmering gold vines, adorned with little flowers blooming between thick thorns. Their face is stricken with guilt as they freeze under your gaze. 

You drop your phone. Chara winces at the thump when it hits the floor, but after that, neither of you move or speak. You think, maybe, you need your parents here right now, but you also know, for sure, that you cannot leave Chara alone to go get them.

“Asriel,” Chara says, with a voice that only quavers slightly. They curl their legs up—entirely covered in fur as they are, you’re pretty sure you wouldn’t see anything inappropriate even if you were looking, but you jerk your gaze up to focus on the wall above their head regardless; they’re clearly uncomfortable. “Get out.”

You shake your head. Your neck is stiff, and the motion is jittery, but you refuse. “You’ll hurt yourself if I do.” You are, unfortunately, putting together all the puzzle pieces of what you’ve stumbled upon—sitting in the tub so their dust won’t get everywhere, leaving the water running so it will wash away all traces of what they’ve done—would their dust have clogged the pipes? Or would you have come upstairs to find their clothes on the floor and the water still running and nothing else?

“I would rather you not be here to watch, yes,” they say, “but I’m not going to stop on your account.”

Unbidden, your gaze flies to their face. Their eyes are hard, and their ever-present smile is almost entirely absent, but for the slightest twitch at the corners of their mouth. 

“Chara,” you babble, urgency thickening your voice, “Please don’t—it’ll be okay, you don’t ha—”

“Shut up, Asriel,” they say, cutting you off. “I’m so tired. I don’t want—I don’t want any of this anymore.” They look away from you, dropping their head forward and murmuring bitterly into their knees. “If Frisk is dead—if they never wake up—I don’t want to live in a world without them. I thought I did, but whenever I think about it, I want to die.” You open your mouth to tell them that they don’t have to worry, but they’re not done. “And if Frisk  _ does _ wake up, everyone will coddle them and be so sympathetic and play nice and poor Frisk! They have it so hard! They’re so sad! Oh Chara, it’s so sweet that you were able to heal them, you must really love them after all! Chara, can’t you be more understanding of them!” Their face twists, their voice warping into a sneer. It drops as quickly as it came, though, replaced with a weak smile. “That’s the best part, isn’t it? I saved their life! I’ll have nobody to blame but myself next time they hurt me!” They laugh, and you’re expecting it to rise into a despairing cackle—you’re almost hoping it does, because then someone will hear and come upstairs to check on you—but Chara cuts themself off, gasping. Their voice is so small, when they say, “Maybe Frisk isn’t the only one who can’t handle this.”

You’re almost glad that you didn’t have the chance to tell Chara that Frisk woke up, that they’re going to be okay—you realize, now, that’s not going to help. That might even make things worse. After talking with Mom, you might have a better idea of what you could have said to Frisk, but Chara’s so different—how can the two of them do the exact same things so differently? 

“I don’t want you to die,” you blurt. There are tears ready to fall down your face; you don’t care. Frisk didn’t want to hear that Chara cared about them, so maybe Chara’s the opposite—maybe they’d like to hear that someone wants them around. You know  _ you’d _ like to hear that. “I want—I wanna be your friend! I can’t do that if you’re dead!”

Their gaze snaps to you so quickly their ears flip out, having to catch up with the rest of their head. You wince, as their neck pulls against the vines wrapped around it, but they don’t seem to notice, their eyes fixed on you. 

“You—after everything, you still…?” 

You nod, sniffing. Either the motion dislodges the tears, or you blink, but the first ones are falling down your cheeks now. You reach up with both hands, wiping your face. “I wanna figure out how to be friends,” you babble, as you rub your knuckles against your cheeks. “I wanna help you, and go to therapy with you, and be on your dumb council! I wanna teach you how to play Mortal Kombat and Splatoon!” You’re full-on sobbing now, and you’re pretty sure half your words are coming out mangled, but it’s not like the names of video games are going to mean anything to Chara anyway.

“Wasn’t Frisk your first choice for that?” they say, but the snide tone in their voice is weak, forced. You sniff loudly. “I suppose you’ll switch back to wanting to be  _ their _ friend once I fail to meet your expectations. You’re only interested in whichever of us is more convenient at the time.”

That hurts, and your shoulders tense, but—patience, your mom said. You shake your head. “I’m not switching back and forth,” you mumble. “I always wanted to be friends with both of you.” 

You hate it—that you’re pathetic enough to still want Frisk’s friendship, too. That you still care about the opinion of someone who can’t even say sorry for trying to kill you. 

Maybe Chara feels that way, too. Maybe they feel pitiful for still liking Frisk enough to be able to heal them, after everything that’s happened.

But, pathetic or not, you want to feel it again—the tenderness of them holding your hand, before you’d learned the real reason they didn’t want to let you go. The happiness of knowing that Chara and Frisk both risked life and limb to save you from a killer robot.

The warmth from Frisk’s hug, when they’d found you again in the marsh. The comfort from hugging Chara and laughing with them for Mettaton’s dumb photoshoot.

“I want to be your friend,” you repeat. It’s definitely, completely selfish. “Please don’t kill yourself.”

“I’m not a good friend,” Chara mumbles. “You’d be better off picking someone else.”

“I don’t want to!” You’re whining, maybe, but through your blurry vision, you can see Chara’s looking at you. They’re looking at you, and listening, and their fire remains in midair instead of descending down upon them. “Please. Please don’t die.”

Your tears don’t stop, and now there’s snot on your upper lip, thick when you sniff. You turn your head to push your face into your shoulder, using the short sleeves of your t-shirt to wipe it off, which you know Mom would chide you for but she’s not here, it’s just you and Chara and you don’t know what to do. Another wracking sob takes you by surprise, and you have to switch arms, because this sleeve’s soaked and gross. 

“You want to be on the council? You’re not just saying that?” Chara asks. You nod into your arm. “You really still want to be my friend?” You nod again. You wish you could actually tell them out loud, but you can’t trust your voice right now to do anything but squeak and crack.

Inside, though, you know it’s no good if you convince Chara to live just because  _ you  _ want them to. They need to want it, too. It might seem like it's working right now, to talk them down, but it won’t really solve anything. Next time they feel this awful… Maybe Mom’s right, when she says you all need to see a therapist. 

You stammer over your tears, fighting your throat and lungs to force complete, understandable words out, “W-We’ll make it work, okay? We’ll make it b-better. I w-won’t let things stay like this.”

Over your ugly crying noises, you hear what sounds like matches being struck, and you lift your head to see the fires around Chara going out. The vines unwind from their limbs, dissipating as they do. You can feel a smile starting to tentatively form on your face, even as you blink out yet more tears. Chara drops their eyes, and grumbles, “Turn around.” When your forehead pinches in confusion, they snort. “So I can get dressed, idiot.”

Your mouth opens in an ‘O,’ and you spin around as quickly as you can without falling over. It at least gives you the chance to use the towel by the sink to dry your face off a little more, though you haven’t managed to completely stop your tears yet. Your face aches from all the crying you’ve been doing. You remember to pick your phone back up, too; the new case is doing its job, and to your relief, the screen remains smooth and uncracked. That would have sucked, breaking your phone a literal day after getting it—and you know Mom wouldn’t have had any sympathy for you.

Getting here too late and losing Chara would have sucked even worse, though. 

You remain facing the door as you hear the sounds of water draining from the tub, and then shifting fabric, until Chara says, quietly, “It’s okay now.” When you turn around, they’re wearing the new clothes they got yesterday. Their tail is tucked away, and their toes curl and uncurl nervously. For a moment, you’re confused as to why their fur isn’t wet, and then you remember what magic comes easiest to them. When you look at their face, their smile is nowhere to be found; instead they look at you with fear naked in their expression. “Are you going to tell anyone?” they ask. “What I tried to do?”

Your first instinct is to swear secrecy, but—”Are you going to try again?”

They drop their head, looking to the side. “That’s fair,” they murmur. It’s not an answer, but you think you both understand what they’re not saying.

Neither of you move to get the door. Chara’s probably not looking forward to anyone else’s reactions, but it’s not like you’re going to announce it to the whole house, just your parents. If Mom’s sending you all to shrinks, that’s the kind of thing she needs to know, isn’t it? It's up to Chara if they want to tell anyone else.

You _ should _ head downstairs, now, to your parents—and to Frisk—but...

“Can I... hug you?”

Chara’s head snaps back up, their eyebrows furrowed. Your face heats up, but you hold their gaze. It’d worked before, when Frisk suggested that you hug them—they’d been right, that it’d make you feel better. If your own heart is still thumping this fast, flinging your blood through your veins, then you can’t imagine how Chara feels. 

And you can see them, but you—you want to hold them. To know they’re actually still here.

“Yeah,” they mumble. Their nose is flushed an intense red. “Okay.”

Your arms wrap tightly around them, but they don’t tell you that you’re squeezing too hard. They rest their chin on your shoulder, and their own hold on you is firm, despite how both of you are still shaking a little bit. You let your eyes close, you press your damp cheek into the fluff of their neck, and your breaths, eventually, start to come a little slower, your heart beating a little less frantically. 

“Ha…ha… ” It’s not really a laugh, not like they usually make. It’s almost as if they’re simply saying the noises out loud, trying to act like it’s nothing serious, to make themself laugh it off. But their voice is tiny and desperate, when they say, “I don’t want to let go.”

Finally, you have to.

They wait for you outside the bathroom door while you brush your teeth and use the toilet. Which is kind of weird, but you guess you can get why they’d want to stay close. When you come out, the two of you walk to the end of the hallway, but you stop at the top of the stairs, looking down to the first floor landing, and your hand seeks theirs out. 

“Frisk is awake,” you warn them. They stiffen, their fingers going rigid in your own. “They woke up just before I came upstairs.” Or close enough to it.

“Okay,” Chara breathes. You give their hand a squeeze, and they shut their eyes tight, inhaling deeply. “Okay,” they repeat, eyes fluttering open again. “Thank you for warning me.”

You nod, and the two of you head down to the first floor. Neither of you are in any rush, your sock-covered feet and their paw pads both quiet, both of you taking small, slow steps. You reach the living room door, and you stand silently, looking in.

There’s a lump in the blankets on the couch bed, where Frisk has apparently retreated in a ball under the covers. Gerson has taken Papyrus aside, though you can see the skeleton still shooting worried glances toward Frisk and hopping nervously from foot to foot. Your mom sits on the edge of the mattress, and she has one hand flat on the lump that is probably Frisk, rubbing soothing, repetitive circles on what you can only assume is the curve of their back. Next to her, Dad is sat on the kitchen chair you’d been using earlier. He’s almost too big for it, but his recliner’s on the other side of the sofa, and you can see why he doesn't want to move there, even though it would be a far more comfortable seat; he and Mom are holding hands.

Your face heats up as you realize Chara’s hand is still in yours. That’s different, though! You’re just holding their hand to support them, and because it feels nice! It’s not at all like when Mom and Dad hold hands. Definitely not!

Nobody has noticed the two of you in the door. Chara breathes in, their shoulders rising, and then they exhale. They step forward, and you follow. 

There hadn’t exactly been much conversation in the room to start with, but there’s a palpable silence that falls once you enter, thick enough that you almost trip on it. Everyone’s eyes are on you, and Chara’s steps falter, but they continue their approach to the bed.

It’s your dad who breaks the silence first. “Chara!” he says, dropping Mom’s hand and rising from his chair, only to drop to a knee in front of you. You think the lump in the covers flinches at hearing him say Chara’s name. “Were you not sleeping?”

They shake their head, unable to meet his gaze. “I couldn’t fall asleep,” they mumble. 

“With so many worries weighing down upon you, it is no surprise,” Dad allows. He moves slowly, when he sets his hand on their shoulder and gives a little squeeze. “I would like to offer you a cup of tea, but I suspect you have more pressing concerns.”

They look at his hand on their shoulder, and then smile—not quite at him, their gaze a little bit lower than his chin, but you know Dad won’t take it the wrong way that they can’t look him in the eye. “Actually, I’d like that. If it’s okay,” they mumble.

“Of course!” Dad looks over his shoulder at Mom, and she nods. He stands up, and, tossing your hair on his way out, walks past you to the kitchen.

“My children,” Mom says, patting the now-empty chair next to her. Chara takes the chair, and you stand next to Mom, leaning against her. “I was wondering what was taking you so long,” she says to you. 

“I need to tell you something,” you tell her, trying to keep your voice down, but of course when you  _ want _ to be quiet, your voice cracks, and you think everyone in the room heard you. 

She raises her eyebrows, but nods. “Only me?” she asks.

“You and Dad.”

She nods again, free hand combing through your bangs and straightening the mess your dad left behind. She starts to get up, presumably so you can follow her to speak privately, but Chara’s voice stops you.

“Papyrus, Gerson,” they say. “May I ask you to give us a moment alone?”

Both guards salute. “Absolutely, your majesty!” Papyrus is quick to agree.

“Of course we’ll respect your need for privacy,” Gerson adds. “But, you and Frisk aren’t to be left by yourselves anymore. You understand? You’ve gotta have  _ someone _ else with you, at all times.”

Chara nods. “We apologize for having put such demands on you,” they say, speaking for themself and Frisk. The lump of blankets is silent. 

Gerson and Papyrus leave, then, and it’s just you and Chara and your mom and the ball of bedding. You look at them—are they okay with you telling your mom in front of Frisk, too? But maybe they want to get it over with; it’s likely Frisk will hear about it at some point. Might as well tear the band-aid off. But before you can really ask them if that’s what they want, they speak again.

“Asriel found me—found me t… trying to…” Though they start off strong, they quickly choke on the words. As though their voice is a physical thing that they can’t manage to force out of their mouth, they gnash their fangs together, but they can't manage any more full words, only strangled noises through their grit teeth. 

“Shh.” Your mom’s hand leaves your hair, and she gently sets her fingers between Chara’s horns. They abandon their attempts at speech, their eyes closing, as they press against her hand automatically. She runs her fingers through the fur on the back of their head, and then again, and the noise they make is somewhere between a sigh and a sob. 

“I want to die,” they moan in quiet despair. “I want to go back upstairs and kill myself right now.”

The alarm that flashes across your mom’s face for an instant matches the fear that shoots up from your gut to your throat. She smoothes her expression out quickly, and runs her thumb over Chara’s unscarred cheek, cupping their face. “I am glad that you are letting me know,” she says, her voice low and somber. “I cannot imagine how difficult it must be to tell me this.”

There’s a noise from under the covers, a slight movement from the lump of blankets. Mom purses her lips in consideration. Chara’s eyes are still closed as Mom pets them, carding her fingers through their fur the same way she does to your hair to comfort you. 

“I will be honest,” Mom says. “I do not know if I should allow the three of you to continue to be near each other.” Chara’s eyes fly open, their fingers tightening around yours, their mouth parted in fear. “You must all have things you wish to say to each other, as well as things you wish to hear, but you have already hurt each other this much. I think it may be best to keep you separated for the time being.”

The blankets shuffle, and Frisk’s muffled voice emerges. “No!” 

“I am sorry, Frisk,” your mom says, her tone hard. “But I think to allow you to continue to be around each other is only setting you up to fail.”

“Not yet,” Frisk pleads through the fabric. “Wanna listen, first. Whatever Chara has to say. Want to hear it. Please. Separate us after.”

Mom’s hand on Frisk’s back goes still. 

“Won’t yell,” Frisk promises. “Won’t fight. Just wanna listen. Please.” 

You can tell it’s against Mom’s better judgment, but she takes her hands back, setting them in her lap. She nods at Chara, who turns their glare to the lump of bedding.

“I’m not talking to a pile of blankets,” they growl. “Get out here and look at me.”

There’s a moment’s delay, before the bedding wiggles and shifts, and Frisk sits up on their knees, blankets falling over their shoulders like a cape. Their eyelids are lowered, and you can see the barest hints of iris and sclera between their pale lashes, but if you weren’t looking so intently, you’d think their eyes were shut, still. Their mouth wobbles, unable to maintain its usual flat line.

Chara’s lips are raised over their teeth, a snarl budding in their throat. For all that Frisk is unable to keep their expression steady, they hold Chara’s gaze, not looking away. 

“I’m mad at you,” says Chara. Frisk flinches, but nods. “I’m trying so hard to make this work, and you just give up like that? I can’t do this on my own!”

“Chara,” you mom starts, but Frisk shakes their head. 

“I want to listen,” they whisper.

“You almost killed me for the right to wear that crown,” Chara hisses, when it’s clear Frisk isn’t going to speak beyond asking you mom to let Chara continue. They're not going to make any excuses for their actions. You can appreciate that, you guess. “If you were going to decide it wasn’t worth those kinds of sacrifices after all, why couldn’t you have figured that out before you hurt me!?”

Still, Frisk doesn’t reply. They wince and almost look away, their shoulders hunch, and they seem to shrink in on themself, even while still holding their head up to meet Chara’s glare. But their mouth doesn’t open.

“Don’t you have anything to say for yourself?” demands Chara. Frisk doesn’t so much as shake their head. Chara’s voice rises, then, “Go on! Tell me why you did it! Tell me why I should feel sorry for you!”

Chara’s shoulders are heaving with their breaths. Mom looks about ready to stop things, but you grab her wrist, shaking your head.

“You said I was the only one who could understand you,” they gasp, their own eyes shutting, their hands coming up to hug themself. “But I can’t do that if you won’t talk to me!”

“I can’t,” Frisk says, finally. “Can’t say it right. No apology big enough. Just make you mad.” They shake their head, and they correct themself, “Just remind you why you  _ should _ be mad at me.”

“So you decided just not to bother!?” Chara yells. “You just gave up without trying?”

Frisk drops their head at last. Their mouth gives up, hanging open in a grimace; their eyes blink wetly and then squeeze tightly shut. “Didn’t wanna make you feel like you had to pretend it was okay. Understand you can’t forgive me. Understand you… you hate me.”

“Shut up!” Frisk does. You wonder if Chara recognizes the irony in demanding Frisk talk and then ordering them to shut up. But that’s clearly the furthest thing from their mind, as they cry, “The only one who gets to decide if I forgive you or not is me! And I  _ want _ to.” They slump forward, catching their face in their hands, their shoulders shaking. “I  _ want _ to, but I  _ can’t  _ if you don’t even let me know you’re sorry!” 

Frisk slowly raises their head. Their eyes are open just far enough, their shocked expression as clear an indication as any that they’ve never even considered the possibility of what Chara’s just said. 

“I did awful things to you, too,” Chara mumbles, and then jerks their head up. Their narrowed red eyes pin Frisk in place. “You can’t leave me,” they command. “We said we were going to try to rule together. So don’t you try to leave me alone like this, ever again!”

“Wanted to make you happy,” whispers Frisk, their eyes held helplessly open under Chara’s glare.

“You’re not going to do it by getting mad and hurting someone,” Chara snarls. Frisk’s eyes widen that much more. “You said you weren’t going to hurt anyone anymore. You don’t get to count yourself as an exception!”

Frisk opens their mouth, and then closes it. They swallow, with visible difficulty, their whole head jerking forward. Their gaze slides to you, and then back to Chara. 

“I’m sorry,” they whisper. “I’m sorry for everything I did to you.” Those brown eyes land on you once more. “I’m sorry I tried to kill you.” And, to your mom, “I’m sorry I got mad when you were trying to help.”

Just like that, you’ve heard what you’ve been wanting them to say for days, now.

Nothing feels any different than before.

Mom’s the only one who replies, “I forgive you, my child.”

You can’t tell them that. It’d be a lie. You’re still not okay with what they did, to you or Chara. But you can at least say, “I’m sorry, too. For what I said earlier.”

Chara says nothing.

Frisk lets their eyes fall shut and their head fall forward. Their fingers clutch the blankets, wringing the fabric. “Chara,” they mumble. “I’m sorry you had to heal me.”

Chara sucks in their breath, sharp through their teeth. “You found out about that.” Guilt washes through you—should you not have told them? Is Frisk going to tell Chara you’re the one who let them know?

“I’m sorry,” Frisk repeats, and you shouldn’t feel so relieved that they’re not outing you. “Not right.”

“It doesn’t matter,” Chara mumbles, rubbing at their arm and looking away. “I did it, and you’re stuck with me.”

“Still not right. Not fair. Hurt you even more,” Frisk says. “I shoulda hid better. Shouldn’t have made you have to save me.” They shudder, as tears run down the line of their nose and fall on the bedding. The blankets they’d pulled up around them are falling from their shoulders. “You’re supposed to live. Not kill yourself, too.”

“Well,” Chara stammers. “Now you know how it feels, to think you might get left behind.”

“I think that’s enough, now,” Mom says, and you flinch, too, because even if you were thinking it, that’s not something you should say—is it? 

But Frisk ignores her, their watery eyes only on Chara as they nod. “Hurts. Don’t wanna be alone,” they sniff. “I wanna stay with you.” They sob, bowing forward until their forearms are flat on the bed, their nose pressed into the mattress and their eyes obscured by their fringe, and the curve of their spine heaves. “I’m sorry. I’m sorry!”

“Me, too,” Chara says. They’re quiet, but you’ve no doubt Frisk’s heard them. “But I’m tired, Frisk. I can’t…”

Frisk shivers. “I know,” they whimper, muffled into the blankets. “Told you already. I understand if you can’t.”

Chara slips from the chair to land on the pads of their feet. Standing, they regard Frisk, who continues to tremble and cry, quietly. You wonder if, maybe, they want to say something else—but they turn and leave the room without another word. At the doorway, your dad is waiting; he sets a hand on their back and guides them with him, presumably to where he has a kettle of tea ready in the kitchen. Mom lays her on hand on Frisk’s shaking shoulders, and you’re almost expecting them to recoil at her touch, but they only fail in their attempt to bite back another whine. 

“I feel as though I should have stopped them sooner,” Mom murmurs. You lean into her, and her other arm comes up to wrap around you. Frisk’s fingers flex in the blankets, their claws digging into the fabric and then releasing it, and you think you see at least one aborted attempt to reach for their own ears, before they remember that you and Mom are there with them. 

Maybe Mom’s right, and you shouldn’t have let Frisk and Chara say those things to each other. But if you didn’t let them talk to each other, would they have continued to stew in those thoughts, their anger building without release? You’ve seen what happens when Frisk tries to pretend they’re not upset. You’d tell this to your mom, but Frisk’s right here crying in front of you; you should probably wait to share these thoughts. 

The rest of the day passes in a strange suspension. Mom makes the phone call to the therapist she’d mentioned, and you can overhear her trying to explain what she needs without giving away the existence of monsters. You wonder how she’s going to explain that to the therapist when you get there, or keep them from spilling the beans—then again, if the therapist can’t be discrete, it’ll probably only help spread the rumours of monsters in your town, so when the truth finally comes out, it’ll be even more evidence in your favour. 

Frisk and Chara aren’t allowed to be alone anymore, or in the same room together, regardless of who’s supervising them, and Papyrus and Undyne and Gerson and your parents are constantly exchanging meaningful glances and not involving you in anything. You try to sit with Chara in the kitchen, but they’re not interested in talking about much of anything. It’s annoying, after you’d told them you still wanted to be their friend—why are they ignoring you now? Eventually Dad tells you that maybe they need a little time to themself after everything that’s happened. (‘Time to themself’ sounds like a joke, considering that Undyne stays with them, but she’s as quiet as you’ve ever seen her, patiently reading through one of Mom’s cookbooks while she sits next to Chara.) 

Banished from the kitchen, you consider the living room, but: Frisk is still out there, lying in bed and feeling sorry for themself. Then again, most of your video games are out there too. Finally bored enough to decide you don’t care if Frisk is there or not, you go to boot up one of your favourite Zelda games and plan to ignore everything until dinner.

You’re pretty sure Frisk is watching you play at least for part of the time; you get to the point in the game where Tatl recalls how she and Tael met the Skull Kid, and you think you hear Frisk choke on a tiny sob. 

The only good thing about the day winds up being that Dad orders pizza for dinner, and you get to pick toppings and go with him to pick it up. 

  
  
  


Chara winds up staying in your room after all, and so Undyne does too; your parents give their own room up to Frisk and Papyrus, and then join you in the living room. The couch bed  _ is _ big enough for all of you, but it’s been a long time since you wanted to sleep in your parents’ bed, and it’s weird; by the next night, you set up another sleeping bag on the floor for yourself. 

You ask them why Frisk and Papyrus couldn’t take the living room instead, and Mom tells you that, considering that there’s no door to shut at the hallway entry, she doesn’t think Frisk would feel at ease. Besides which, Chara has privacy in the space of your room; neither boss monster will be pleased if they feel that one of them has an advantage over the other, and Frisk would not have the same level of privacy in the living room.

And yet: you wake up one night to see that Chara has come downstairs and fallen asleep in the bed with your parents. Another night, Frisk does the same. 

Your nightmares continue. You’re not surprised when Frisk themself, in their true form, shivering with fear next to you, falls victim to their own blade, sometimes. Your brain is kind of predictable with the symbolism. Dad starts offering you chamomile tea before bed, and you’re pretty sure that means he and Mom have noticed you’re not sleeping through the nights, but they’re trying to wait for you to come to them about it. That’s not going to happen, so you guess you get to look forward to them eventually confronting you about it, and you start to plan what kind of excuse or deflection you’ll make when the time comes.

It’s weird, waking up every morning with four other people in your home. You have to knock on the door to your own room when you want to get your clothes for the day, and you’re suddenly very glad that your house has two bathrooms. 

The therapist Mom takes you to on Monday is nice enough, but you don’t really like talking to her, and she’s almost  _ too _ understanding—you want her to tell you that you were mean, when you recount what some of what you said and did, but she just nods and looks at you with sympathy. There are several other counselors at the office, though, and when you mumble a confession to Mom, that you didn’t really like the therapist, Mom doesn’t tell you to deal with it—she thanks you for your honesty, and sets up an appointment for you with one of the other doctors. 

You wonder how Frisk and Chara feel about their own therapists—all three of you have your sessions at the same time, with different doctors—but neither of them says a thing to you about it.

(Your worries about taking Frisk and Chara to see a human therapist turn out to be for nothing. The whole office is beyond thrilled at being among the first to learn that not only is Chara real, but there are even more monsters—like everyone in your town, they’ve all seen the photos. They promise not to tell anybody, but later Mom says she knows they’re going to tell their families—as long as they don’t tell anyone that Chara is one of their patients, saying that they saw the monster from the photos isn’t a violation of their doctor-patient confidentiality agreements.)

Neither of your parents mention your school, as you stay home during the week, and you don’t bring it up, either. Your teacher must have called your parents by now, but even though each night you’re dreading Mom telling you to get ready to go back to school the next day, it never comes. You think you overhear her say something about “homeschooling” to your dad at one point, but then she catches you eavesdropping, and so you can’t keep listening to figure out what that was all about. You try not to get your hopes up.

Papyrus and Undyne keep volunteering to make meals, and your Mom is happy to teach them, but she does only allow one of them to help in the kitchen at a time, after a near-disaster with an attempt at a quiche. You wind up having some very new food experiences, including a spaghetti sandwich—somehow, it’s not as bad as you’re expecting. It’s actually … kind of good?

As the week progresses, Frisk watches you play through the rest of Majora’s Mask. You tell yourself that you don’t care if they’re watching or not, but when Mom lets Frisk and Papyrus bundle themselves up and accompany her on a shopping trip, and you pause the game and don’t pick it back up again until they get home, you have to admit that you’re kind of glad Frisk seems so interested in something you like. 

Papyrus comes back from the shopping trip brimming with excitement for when he finally gets to meet humans officially, and also with an enormous chocolate bar for Chara. You actually  _ aren’t _ purposefully trying to overhear conversations not meant for you, for once, but Papyrus is very loud, and Chara’s taken your bedroom as their own space; you’re coming upstairs with your laundry when you hear them. 

“I am truly sorry!” Papyrus is saying, and you stop in the hallway.

Chara’s voice is much harder to hear, but you’re able to make out, “Frisk put you up to this, didn’t they.”

“They did not tell me to do this! They did, however, ask if I already had apologized to you, and they did not look happy when I told them I had not!”

You manage to keep from snorting at that. How on earth can Papyrus tell if Frisk looks happy or not?

“It’s really not important, Papyrus.”

“Forgive me, your majesty, but! I have often heard you and Frisk say that! And! Later I discover that it  _ is_, in fact, important!”

“Just forget it, okay?” Chara’s raised their voice. “They would have died if I didn’t do anything. You didn’t have a choice.”

“That is true! But it does not make it right, and that does not mean it was not very difficult and upsetting for you! And so I am sorry! Furthermore, I am sorry I did not apologize sooner!”

You’ve definitely listened to much more than you need to. You take your laundry basket back downstairs, and when you hear the door to your room open, you pretend that you’re only just starting to climb the first few steps.

For obvious reasons, Chara doesn’t watch your playthrough of Majora’s Mask with Frisk. But you don’t want them to feel left out, so you lend them your 3DS, and they pick out the first Ace Attorney game from your shelf. You remember too late the contents of the last case; by the time you think to stop Chara and suggest a different game, they’re already halfway through it. To your surprise, though, they ask for the next game once they’re done, and on Friday, you find them in tears, the last case of the third game playing out on the little screens. (You’re impressed by the speed at which they’ve made it through three games that took you over a week, each, until they confess to looking up a walkthrough on their phone. Then, you have to calm them down and explain that you don’t  _ really _ think less of them for it, you were joking, it’s okay, really!)

Chara’s not the only one who winds up crying over your favourite games. When you finally beat Majora’s Mask, both you and Frisk are pretending you’re not in tears over the ending sequences. It’s at least your third time beating this dumb game, but still…! You stubbornly face the screen and don’t look behind you, and they don’t say anything about how your shoulders are shaking and you have to drag your sleeve over your cheeks several times. 

But distracting the three of you with something as mundane as video games doesn’t make them normal kids, and doesn’t change the fact that the two of them are in charge of a kingdom. Undyne, Papyrus, Gerson, and even your own parents end up in what’s almost an absurd game of telephone, having to discuss plans and policy with Frisk and Chara separately, having to repeat everything and pass along any suggestions or disagreements. You try to involve yourself, also—after all, you told Chara you wanted to be on the council, but you haven’t brought it up with your parents, and every time you think you should say something, you look at Mom and you lose your nerve. So it’s difficult to really be a part of the conversations, when nobody thinks to include you, because you’re just a kid.

On Saturday, you all drive to Mt. Ebott for the funeral services for the old king and queen, and Chara and Frisk’s subsequent coronations. Mettaton takes care of a lot of it, which means that the flower arrangements are perhaps a little bigger and gaudier than you would have choosen for a funeral, and there are way more flashing lights than anyone expected, but all things considered, you’re grateful to the robot for everything he’s done. You really ought to tell him, at some point; he’s made a lot of transitions run much smoother than they might have otherwise, if he hadn’t lent his expertise in public relations. 

The funeral is the first time Chara and Frisk have been allowed to be near each other in five days. Though they’ve had limited communication with each other, even planning what they would say during the service, when they’re finally in the same room, they don’t know what to do. They stand far apart, toeing nervously at the ground and fidgeting their hands. At opposite ends of the room, they’re like distant reflections; they’re dressed in matching robes, multi-layered and with fancy trims, navy blue and hunter green, and each wears a black mantle over their shoulders, both edged in gold and silver. Their heads are bare, though, their crowns withheld until the coronation proper. Frisk reaches up to tug at their ear, and Papyrus gently takes their hand and lowers it. 

You’re pretty sure the two of them could stall all day if you let them, so you take matters into your own hands. “Ask if you can hug them,” you hiss to Frisk. Their eyes almost open in shock; you can at least see their eyelids twitch, their brows raise. “It’ll make you feel better.”

Their face doesn’t change, but their shoulders shake, and maybe it’s supposed to be a chuckle. But they take your advice, looking to Chara and, in a quiet, scratchy voice, asking, “Can I?”

If Frisk had used any more words, they wouldn’t have been able to finish their question before finding Chara’s arms around them. Their own hands are shaking when they settle them on Chara’s back, and they inhale loudly, before truly returning the embrace, gripping Chara tightly. 

You’re pretty sure you’re glad to see them not at each other's’ throats. There’s something else you’re feeling, something sharp and pointed that’s picking at your throat from inside your chest, but you don’t know what it is, except that you’re going to ignore it for now. There are more important things to focus on.

During the funeral, Frisk and Chara speak a little bit, mostly of how honoured they are to inherit the throne from the old rulers, how they wish they could have met the queen and king, and how they promise to serve their people to the best of their abilities. Gerson performs the more ceremonial parts; it’s been explained to you, over the past week, how monster funerals incorporate the dust of the deceased, but you still shudder when Gerson sprinkles the queen and king’s remains over Chara and Frisk’s crowns. He then has the two boss monsters kneel in front of him, and places the delicate circlets on their heads. Frisk, being a day older, gets crowned first. Their discomfort isn’t at all visible on their face. Chara only smiles, a perfect expression of humility and a promise of diligence, when they’re crowned next. 

After that, they announce the members of their council to the public, and each appointment—predictable though they might be—is met with cheers. Gerson, Undyne, and Papyrus, of course; Alphys and Sans, whom the people already trust with royal matters, and so you try to put aside your disdain, understanding the value of stability and continuity; a monster you haven’t met before, by the name of Muffett, who is appointed to financial matters; another monster who is new to you, a large bear-like figure whose name you miss; and, finally… 

You hope your parents can forgive you. But Frisk and Chara announcing you as Ambassador in front of the entire monster population is not something that can be easily undone. The anger on Mom’s face tells you she knows you were fully aware of what you were doing when you planned this behind her back. You’re glad you spent last week playing video games, because you have almost certainly just lost a great many privileges, games among them. 

  
  
  


Mom waits until you’re home and she can speak to you in private to really let you know how disappointed she is. Your decision isn’t going to affect only you; she and Dad will have to support you, as you’re a minor, too. Once the existence of monsters becomes public knowledge, it’s going to be a global issue, and you’ve just irrevocably attached yourself to it. You’re lucky, she says, that Dad’s already been talking to her about not running in the next election, that the two of them have been looking into moving to a bigger house, one with more bedrooms and in a town where you can actually drive to a temple or mosque without spending over two hours on the road. 

“More bedrooms?” you ask. “I thought you said it’s not a permanent solution…”

“Nothing is set in stone,” she reassures you. “If you are not comfortable with it, we will find new guardians for the two of them. But the doctors who spoke to the three of you were all very clear. More change and upheaval will not help them. The two of them have latched very strongly onto you, and by extension, they hold some trust for your father and me. Telling them they have to go and live with a new and different family will almost assuredly set back their progress.” She sighs. “Putting you in such a position was exactly what your father and I hoped to avoid,” she admits, confirming what you overheard a week ago. 

She doesn’t admit to you that she’s already starting to think of them like family, but you’ve noticed that she doesn’t mind if Frisk or Chara happen to see her without her hijab. She’ll be sad, too, if you say you’re not okay with it.

You shake your head. “I wanted them to stay,” you remind her. 

“If your feelings on the matter change, please, tell me right away, will you not?” Mom implores. “Their recovery is important, but it should not jeopardize your own health. Do you understand?”

“I understand,” you say.

“Will you promise to tell me if you become upset or uncomfortable?” she presses, and you try not to let your frustration show on your face. Of course Mom would catch you trying to avoid replying to that part. 

You’re going to have to try to figure out a loophole later. “I promise,” you reluctantly agree.

“You are very good,” Mom praises you, kissing your forehead. “I am still disappointed in you for pulling such a stunt earlier, but I will discuss it with your father before we decide what to do.” You wince; you were hoping you’d distracted her, but you guess what you’ve done is kind of a big deal. You hadn’t really thought about how it would affect her or Dad, either, so you probably deserve whatever she’s going to decide on, but that doesn’t mean you’re looking forward to it. 

“Sorry,” you mumble.

Mom doesn’t reply right away, which is weird; you look up at her, and she’s regarding you strangely. Her fingers absently brush your bangs out of your face. “I worry,” she murmurs. There are lines in her forehead, and at the sides of her mouth. Normally you don’t notice, but now, the wrinkles outline her anxiety, like a map. “I worry about you so, so much. Every time I have heard of another hate crime—another person beaten, shot, killed, simply because they are Muslim, another mosque or temple vandalized—I have feared to let you out of my sight. I wished, before you were born, that you would look more like your father than me.”

“Mom,” you start, “you’re so pretty, though—”

She runs her fingers through your hair again, and you go quiet. “You are such a sweet, wonderful boy,” she says, a pained smile on her face. “But there are many who will not care to learn how incredible you are. They will see your skin, they will see you with your mother in her hijab, they will see your father buying Hanukkah candles, and they will decide they know you based on those things. Your father and I wanted to have you so, so much, but we knew that the moment you were born, there would be a target on your back.”

You don’t have a response. Mom and Dad have talked to you about this before—not that Mom wanted you to look more like Dad, but. It’s always been a concern. You’ve known, for as long as you can remember, that people look at you a little differently than they look at your white classmates. You’ve seen the news articles. You’ve heard reporters ask your dad what he thinks, whenever someone is kicked off a plane for speaking Arabic, or when people raise a fuss because Starbucks has non-denominational winter cups. You’ve heard the things people have said about him and your mom, because she’s Muslim and he’s not. 

“I had hoped,” Mom says, “that you would grow up and find something you love to do. Perhaps become a beloved writer, or movie director.” You have, of course, made Mom and Dad sit through many tellings of the God of Hyperdeath’s adventures. “Or perhaps you would discover a new interest. As long as it made you happy.” Her eyes are watery. This is the second time you’ve made Mom cry in as many days. You don’t know why she says you’re a sweet or wonderful boy, when clearly you’re a awful son. “Whatever it was.” Her voice breaks. You step forward, into her arms, and she closes them tight around you, resting her cheek on the crown of your head as she whispers, “I just hoped it would not make that target upon you even bigger.”

“I’m sorry, Mom,” you whisper. You squeeze her back, and you let her hold you for as long as it takes for her breathing to even out. 

You let her hold you for a little longer, after that, too.

“I love you so much,” she tells you. “My little prince. My darling boy. My Asriel.” Another kiss is left on the crown of your head. “You are growing up so quickly. But please, be careful, will you not?”

“I’ll be careful,” you promise. “I’ll try to think before I do things. I’ll ask you and Dad for help.”

“That is all I ask,” she says. She lets you go, though she keeps her hands on your shoulders as she studies you. She’s smiling, but it’s forced. “All right. I have kept you long enough. I believe Chara and Frisk would like to spend some more time with you, before the day is over.” So saying, she stands and ushers you out of the study with false cheer, and you play along. 

She and Dad have agreed to let Frisk and Chara spend the rest of the day together, if they wish. Although they’d asked the two of them separately, so that they wouldn’t feel pressured by the other’s answer, both boss monsters had replied in the same way, with nervous nods and noses gone red with embarrassment. 

Chara and Frisk are waiting with Dad in the living room. They’re still in their fancy robes and crowns, and Dad’s teaching them to play Uno; the incongruity of it all makes you laugh. Dad has you pull up a chair, and he deals you in.

The night isn’t without further hiccups; Frisk is, apparently, a sore loser, and even though Dad tries to explain that it’s largely a game of luck, with very little skill involved, Frisk won’t play anymore after you win the first game. They’re still sulking up until dinner, and they act like they don’t want any of Mom’s casserole, until she tells them in no uncertain terms that she isn’t impressed with their tantrum, nor their decision to punish themself for what they know is unacceptable behaviour by withholding food from themself. Completely cowed, Frisk sits down and accepts their plate. 

(Your mom is really awesome.)

After dinner (and dessert), you and Chara go to the living room, Dad accompanying you. He sits in his armchair with a book and a cup of tea, but you and Chara find yourselves at a loss as to what to do. There are plenty of options—movies, or games (Mom hasn’t told you you’re not allowed yet), or you could ask Chara if they like to draw—but you can’t quite get up the enthusiasm for anything. 

You’ve looked over all the DVDs in the shelf next to the TV by the time Frisk comes out into the living room. When you look up at them, they quickly duck their head, and they go straight to your dad. He puts his book down when they come to a stop in front of him, and he waits patiently for them to screw up their determination and speak. 

“Sorry,” they mumble. They can’t quite look him in the eye, but they’re making an effort to not look at their feet, at least. “Shouldn’t have gotten so mad about losing. Sorry.”

Dad smiles, and reaches out to muss up the fur between their horns. With how big Dad’s hands are, Frisk’s ears get flopped around a little bit too, but they don’t seem to mind. When your dad takes his hand back, Frisk’s crown is a askew, but as they fix it, their mouth is pulled up the tiniest bit at the corners. “Thank you for apologizing,” Dad says. “It is all right. You will know for next time, now.”

Frisk drops their head, the small semblance of a smile that had been creeping across their face now vanished. You know what they, Chara, and you are all thinking—that ‘next times’ are not Frisk’s forte—but nobody voices the thought.

Cautiously, Frisk turns their head to peek at you, and you realize you’ve been staring. Next to you, Chara jumps, and they’ve been caught out, too. Frisk makes their way to the two of you, and you and Chara get up from where you’d been sitting next to the DVD shelf, so that you’re standing to meet them. 

“Sorry,” Frisk says, the moment they reach you. The apology comes out forcefully, and you try not to flinch at their tone. They repeat what they said to your dad, “Shouldn’t have gotten mad over losing. Sorry.”

You know you should at least copy Dad in thanking them for apologizing—and also for admitting what they’d done wrong. You’d always grumbled when your parents made you do that, but now, being on the receiving end, it makes it easier to accept that the apology is genuine, when Frisk tells you  _ why _ they’re sorry. 

Next to you, Chara crosses their arms, frowning. But, when they open their mouth, instead of snapping at Frisk, what comes out is, “I appreciate the apology. It’s all right.”

“It’s just a game. It’s no big deal,” you add. So, okay, it  _ had _ sort of spoiled the mood for the rest of the night, but all Frisk had done was sulk and kick their feet and grumble a lot. They hadn’t destroyed anything or hurt anyone, and now they’re trying to make amends.

Frisk shakes their head. “Not just the game,” they push. “Wanted… wanted today to be good. With Chara. Messed it up. Sorry.” They’re fiddling with something in their pockets, unable to look at you anymore. 

“Things aren’t going to be fixed after only a week,” Chara sighs. 

“Know that,” Frisk grumbles. “Can’t help it. Still wanted today to go right.” They shift their weight from foot to foot.

You’re about to say something, when Frisk yanks their hand out of their pocket and shoves it at the two of you. You flinch away, until you realize their hand has come to a stop a few inches from you, and they’re holding something. At first you’re not sure what the dangling objects are, as they clatter into each other where they hang below Frisk’s closed fist, too fast for your eye to catch onto them. Once they slow, still swaying under Frisk’s trembling hand, your eyebrows rise. 

The light catches off the gold surfaces of the three heart-shaped necklaces. Your eyes focus on them further, and you can see hinges on the sides—not just necklaces. Lockets. You stomp down on your initial reaction to stick out your tongue at something so ‘girly’—even before meeting Frisk and Chara, your mom definitely wouldn’t approve of you being so disdainful of something simply because of its gender associations. And, if you’re honest with yourself, they  _ are _ pretty. 

“F-For you,” Frisk stammers. “Both of you. Do whatever you want with them. Throw them away. Don’t care. Whatever you want.” They’re babbling, and the lockets clink as they hit each other, bouncing at the ends of their chains from how Frisk’s hand is shaking.

“You don’t care?” Chara asks, not reaching out to take the jewelry. “If I take these, and throw them away, what will you do?”

Frisk’s eyes are visibly squeezed tightly shut. “Your choice. Not up to me.”

Chara steps forward, their fingers closing around the chains under Frisk’s hand. “That isn’t what I asked. Are you telling me you’ll accept that?” they press, with narrowed eyes and bared teeth. “You’re trying to make some kind of apology. What if I throw it back in your face? What if Asriel doesn’t want it? You won’t get angry?”

Frisk keeps their grip on the chains for a moment longer. When they open their hand, they’re slow to take it away, and their fingers linger on Chara’s for perhaps longer than necessary. “I’ll accept it,” they promise. “Might get mad. But not at you. Won’t be your fault. Won’t blame you.”

Chara holds the lockets between the two of you, so that you can see them. The hearts are plain, unadorned gold; you reach out and take one between your forefinger and thumb, then flick it open. There are no photos inside, of course, but you can see where they would fit. 

“What do you think, Asriel?” they ask you. You close the locket between your fingers, and then let it drop to dangle with the other two. “They said these are for both of us, but there are three of them.” Frisk makes to take a step backward, and Chara’s sharp voice stops them. “Don’t run away,” they order. “You said you’d accept whatever Asriel and I decide.”

Frisk’s hands clench into fists, then open up. They ball up the fabric of their robe between their fingers, kneading the fine, decorated garment, and you hope their claws don’t do any permanent damage. “Don’t wanna make you feel like you have to decide now,” Frisk says to the ground.

Chara nods. “Good,” they growl. “Because if you wanted me to make a decision now—” They cut themself off, shaking their head, and look down at the lockets in their hand. “Maybe I can forgive you,” they say. “Or maybe I never will. But not yet.”

Frisk lets go of their robe, their shoulders sagging. 

Chara looks at you, and you nod. “We’ll hold onto these,” Chara says. They hand one to you, tucking the other two into their pocket. “Thank you.”

There are tears making trails down Frisk’s nose and dripping onto the floor, but they’re not sniffling or wiping their face, presumably trying not to draw attention to it, so you pretend that you don’t notice. Their shoulders shake with every breath. “Want to become someone worth being your partner,” they say. “Gonna try as hard as I can.”

Chara nods. “I’m going to become someone you can be proud to call partner, too.”

Frisk looks up again, their eyes just barely open, lashes stuck together with tears. There’s a nervous smile struggling to form on their face. They look at you, too. “And I’ll be someone worth being your friend, Asriel,” they promise. Before you can reply, they blurt out, “Good night!” and spin around, running out of the living room.

In the hallway, you can hear your mom’s voice asking if they’re ready for bed, and so you know you don’t have to go find someone to go with them, since neither Frisk nor Chara are allowed to be alone, still. (You’re starting to strongly suspect the adults have decided the same about you, too. You’re still wondering if it’s worth calling them out on it, or if you should just go with it.)

“Good night,” Chara calls quietly after them, as you hear their footsteps head toward the stairs. They turn to smile at you, and you realize their cheeks are wet, too. “Oh.” It’s less a gasp, and more a subdued explanation, as they raise a hand to your face. Their thumb wipes at your cheek, that blunt claw dragging just above the soft pad; when they take their hand away, their thumb is wet.

Well. That’s no surprise. You’ve always been a crybaby. 

“It’ll be okay, Asriel. We’ll make it work out,” Chara tells you, and you want to laugh. Shouldn’t that be your line? Isn’t that what you were promising them, a week ago in the bathroom?

You believe them, though. You’re still having nightmares every night, and you panic whenever Frisk looks at your mom the wrong way or Chara’s grin goes too wide, and the two of them can’t be around each other for more than three hours without something going wrong. You’ve just agreed to be the ambassador to what’s possibly the kingdom with the most traumatized child rulers in the history of ever. All this, and you all still haven’t even gone public with the existence of monsters yet, choosing to wait another week until after Halloween is over. 

It’s going to be a long road, to say the least.

But, you think, as long as the three of you stay determined, and don’t give up, that they’re right.

It’ll be okay.


End file.
